


What I Like About You

by arcadevia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam is alive, Angst, Assumed Relationship, Comedy, Everyone ships them, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Lance is 19 and Keith is 21, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Road Trips, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Swearing, Underage Drinking, Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08 Fix-It, romcom vibes, they already act like a couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24108451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadevia/pseuds/arcadevia
Summary: Things have gone fairly smooth since Voltron’s return to Earth a few months ago.Fairly.To Lance’s delight and Keith’s dismay, everything andmoreabout their partnership has been read into and plastered all over the media by the adoring fans of Voltron: from suggestive interviews about Keith’s sexuality, to gushy articles coupling up (or “shipping”) him and his right hand man. Needless to say, Keith is ready to check out and call himself completelyspent.Except hecan’t,because in a whirlwind of excitement, Lance manages to drag him into a road trip headed downstate to meet his newborn niece, all the while basking in this newly bestowed limelight for what Keith presumes to be typical, fame-craving reasons.And he’d say it’s terribly ironic how the rumors are true. Keith Kogane is somehow a sucker for the one and only Lance McClain.But that part he keeps to himself. Or at least he tries to.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been waiting to finally post this for so long WHEW
> 
> side note: this is during a reconstruction period immediately after the war, i pretty much abandoned all of plot points in s8, basically everyone getting used to being back on earth 
> 
> ENJOY

Perhaps it was the dire circumstances of war, pushing him to his last string of sanity, that had Keith completely mystified by the obvious outcome of becoming famous _worldwide_ once the paladins returned, from space and _then_ the final battle on earth. As if his misfortune had to pull one more robeast out of its ass before finally letting him heave lungfuls of sweet, earthy air. It wasn’t for long though, the first week, or more like month, paved way for amateur attempts at debriefings from the Garrison to make up for three-years-or-so worth of outrageous space missions. Along with this, Keith was constantly bombarded by interviews that have less to do about his service and more to do with just _him_.

And that’s how he’s here now, stooped in the middle of a CVS aisle to glare skeptically at a rack of magazines, a row of which adorn his usual stoic face, but this time it’s glossy and attractive, they even touched up his scar that rakes down his right cheek. _“Keith Kogane: LGBT Hero”_ he reads before rolling his eyes. Yeah he’s heard that one before, too many times to count. Apparently being gay and helping save the world is some atroceous concept for people’s minds to wrap around. And for others, annoyingly influential. The most he’s been faced with in interviews are either an awkward or delightful inquiry of _“So you’re gay?”_. And he does his best to understand the relevance in it, how you jump from asking about some revelation of time he’d encountered to what his sexuality is, but at this point it’s beyond him and he only says _“Yes”_ with his best scary face (as Lance puts it). Just like that, the subject is dropped and he’s back to recalling the same sequence of events for the millionth time.

_“5 Moments Keith Kogane had Heart-Eyes for his Partner, Lance McClain!”_

They can’t be serious. Come on, really? Like these people have had the time to reach for something like that, and even _write_ about it to begin with. His love life is as bland as the Garrison meals, whatever they’ve “caught” is something he must’ve experienced firsthand and didn’t find significant enough for himself to remember. So no way. His supposedly romantic ties with Lance are nothing but a ploy for publicity and money to attract whoever’s _sorry_ enough to actually pick up this magazine.

“Pfft.” His shoulders jump. He looks around for a second or two then picks up the magazine.

_Page 27…_ He flips through the pages as cooley as possible and stays hunched over to avoid being noticed. Seriously, this whole thing is so dumb, who would even take the time to put together some issue for ogling romantics?

This person apparently. Two pages are decorated in a colorful assault to Keith’s eyes. Heart eyed emoji things cluster around the margins and each picture of he and his teammate is surrounded by some jagged neon border, like a scrapbook made at some girl’s thirteenth birthday party. Underneath are lovesick recollections of the events displayed. 

_“Lance has Keith wearing an adoring smile on stage at the V.L.D. Convention for Future Pilots.”_

_“Lance’s attempt at teaching an amusing handshake to Keith only makes his fellow paladin’s fondness even more obvious!”_

_“Keith sends a sneaky glance—“_

Alright that’s enough. He tears his eyes away from the collage of photos with his mocking, smitten face in them before flipping the magazine shut. Who even needs these anyway? Why don’t they all focus on the economy, and finishing up reconstruction, and political stuff, and _anything besides this?_

He scowls and feels his nostrils flare before snatching up each of the identical magazines off the entire rack and swinging in the other direction to stow them elsewhere. Instead, he’s met with another customer at his side, who startles for a moment before looking at him more curiously. “You look familiar…” The lady says, her head comically bent back to look at Keith’s face towering above her stout frame. Her blue eyes look three times wider than they probably should be from how terribly thick the prescription of her purple glasses are. Keith prays to god her bug eyes remain on him and not the other… _him_ ’s bunched together in his arms.

“No I don’t,” He manages to say before stiffly shoving an entire pile of magazines between two stuffed bears on another shelf. The hearts sewn to their paws read _“True Love”_ and _“You & Me” _ which is terribly ironic for what he’s trying to suppress. As he marches out the store, with the pack of Doritos he meant to buy still sitting in the next aisle over, he hears the teddy bears’ chorus blaring behind him.

_“What I like about you_

_You hold me tight_

_Tell me I’m the only one—“_

“Oh you’re that guy from The Walking Dead!”

🧸❤️🧸

He’s settled in the hangar, stubbornly trying to wipe leftover sauce off his standard Garrison jacket, when his phone begins to buzz from his back pocket. There’s no upcoming missions he’s involved with for the rest of today, hence the stain from carelessly shoveling down his dinner, so fortunately he’s got time for whatever is at hand.

He plucks out the device and finds Veronica McClain’s contact displayed across the screen.

“Hello?” He answers amongst a flurry of noise on the other end. It sounds like several people jabbering all at once, and knowing the McClain family, it probably is. Veronica’s voice is in the mess, but she rambles words unfamiliar to Keith’s ears with an urgent tone. _Is this thing malfunctioning?_ He pulls the phone away but the screen stays solid and valiantly bright in the dimly lit hangar, so he brings it close again.

The chaos seems to have subsided and Veronica’s voice finally tapers down in volume. “Keith?” She says, and it’s scarily close to her brother’s crazed tone when a serious situation is at hand. His heart stills, back straightens, and eyes scan the almost vacant space he’s in, where rarely anyone wanders around past daylight. Although he can recall Lance is currently stationed at the runway where the last of their ships are either taking off or landing, a part of him feels a faint sense of rattling panic for the off chance something has indeed happened to his teammate.

“Yeah- uh, is everything alright?” He asks. Veronica’s tone must’ve already bled into his because now he’s the one faltering.

“ _Yes, he’s on right now, now shut up!—_ Yeah, is Lance with you? He won’t answer his phone.”

“Ah no, but I think I know where he is. Do you want me to go get him?” He suggests, because he still hasn’t a clue what’s going on. Perhaps it’s the end of the world, perhaps not, the McClains tend to dramatize nearly everything. Lance once tore his own room apart looking for a sock that was actually stuck in his pant leg. No, Keith will not be letting that go anytime soon.

“Yeah! Just tell him to answer his phone, our niece was just born like two minutes ago!”

“Oh.. _Oh!_ Oh my— yeah I’ll get there quick...” He starts scampering toward the exit for whatever is the quickest route to the runway. Looks like his jacket will have to wait.

“Thanks Keith, you’re the best!”

“Yeah,” He grunts before ending the call and sliding around a corner. The janitor sends a nasty glare his way but whatever, he saved the universe, a little dirt on the tile won’t hurt.

It’s a blessing that he’s kept up with cardio even after coming back, otherwise this long ass journey would have him shriveled up not even halfway across the base. He’s not sure exactly how big of a deal a baby being born is, but according to the movies it does call for the level of urgency Keith’s feeling right now. And Lance probably wouldn’t want anything short of that, honestly.

Before he knows it, Keith’s finally jogging along the runway to where a cluster of people stand. He tries his best to sort through the group, then finally distinguishes Lance at the edge. Lance is hunched over slightly, scanning whatever is in his hand— a phone, Keith notices once he’s finally caught up. _“So much for running,”_ he thinks and says, unapologetically latching onto Lance’s shoulder so he could pant for a solid minute.

Lance’s reverie is not broken though, he stays unmoving save for the thumb that scrolled through an onslaught of messages, then finally a picture of a little baby girl, swaddled in a pale yellow blanket. Keith feels Lance move when he gasps, and just like that, his dazed state is shattered and Lance’s boisterous antics are back. 

“I’M GONNA BE AN UNCLE!” He shouts, seemingly to no one until he turns to catch Keith’s eye. The pilots around him jump at the sudden noise and send confused glares his way, but Lance is none the wiser. “Well- I already am, but like, to another kid! Holy _crap!_ Oh my god, isn’t she _adorable?_ ” Lance shoves the phone in Keith’s face, but only a progressing stream of texts shows and Lance is probably too excited to care. “Oh man… why are you all sweaty?”

“I ran all the way over here for that, thank you very much,” Keith huffs. His bangs fly for a moment, then settle back over his exhausted face. He’s too tired to move them, also too tired to get them trimmed again. Maybe he isn’t caught up in cardio, space seems like a luxury compared to how demanding this actual military base is.

Lance laughs. The weak kind that also makes Keith’s heart just as weak. He looks crisp and presentable, especially compared to Keith’s current attire, but his hair is unruly from the wind outside. His smile is so sincere it’s almost unrecognizable without a hint of mischief in it, and his dimples are even more noticeable. “Thank you, Keith,” He says. And before Keith is even ready, he’s scooped up in a suffocating embrace, and Lance abandons his calmness to squeal again. The sound may as well be from Keith cause he feels like a goddamn balloon wheezing out helium right now, but honestly his tolerance for Lance has stretched to the horizon by now.

“No.. problem..” Keith says as all of the bones in his back pop like a human xylophone. It feels strange to be involved in another McClain family event, similar to seeing them all reunite for the first time those months ago. It’s one thing to hear Lance mope around and reminisce on memories of a family Keith’s unfamiliar with, and another to actually, finally, meet them all. What are there, like twenty or something? That sounds like too much, but each of them talk enough for two. It makes it a lot easier not to feel too pressured in a conversation, but seriously challenging to follow along. He’d have a better time navigating one of the expert levels of flight simulation than understand the order of events that made Nadia’s favorite color yellow. That time was him just trying to smile and nod at the little girl, and _not_ freak out about Lance’s nephew teleporting around the backyard with Kosmo’s tail in his hand.

Lance flings Keith back by the shoulders and holds him in place with a wild look in his eyes. The sun is setting and it’d feel quite intimate and beautiful, had Keith not been briefly concerned for the boy’s sanity. “Wanna go see her with me?” Lance asks excitedly while his fingers dig into Keith’s thin T-shirt.

“What like, _now?_ ” Keith asks. He lifts Lance’s hands by the wrists so the blood in his shoulders can actually circulate and function. “Isn’t that— Aren’t they downstate?”

“Yeah! But I mean everyone already knows you— well, except for Maricela now.” Lance gestures with his phone, and although it’s shut off now, Keith gets the gist. “Plus this is my chance to see you interact with a baby, and wouldn’t that be a sight to see...”

“I get along with children just fine,” Keith crosses his arms as they both head toward the entrance for indoors. During the several times he and Lance were granted the duty of wrangling up Nadia and Sylvio from wherever they’d dashed off to, he’s comfortable in saying they at least enjoy his presence. Also, Sylvio’s definitely got a thing for his long hair— _“Just like Lance,”_ he recalls one of Lance’s sisters saying under her breath. Keith didn’t forget it.

“I said a baby, not a child!” Lance defends, as if Keith thinks the difference between those two are relevant. Whatever.

Lance turns on his heel to face Keith once they step inside. The air is slightly colder, and Keith mourns his jacket that lays abandoned on the other side of the base. “So?” Lance asks. His brows lift and eyes narrow until Keith feels like it’d be against the law or something to say no. “What do you say?”

He’s got no scheduled missions tomorrow anyway, and Maricela _does_ look quite adorable in that photo. Fuck it. “Sure, whatever.”

“WoOHOO _Roooadtriiip_!” Lance bellows. Keith sends an apologetic look to any frightened onlookers before swatting Lance’s head. It’s only a few hours, but it should be interesting.

🧸❤️🧸

It’s already interesting, from the time Lance hands him a fucking carebear sweatshirt to replace his (still abandoned) jacket, to Lance wearing one to _match_ , to hopping into an old ass car (seriously, there’s like hover-vehicles and shit now, and they couldn’t use that?), to where they’ve met their first squabble of the night.

“Oh shit— Keith, get in the back.” Lance is outside the passenger side to fill up the gas tank, and Keith is already embarrassed they’re _here_ among all the other stations that are for recent makes which only need to be _charged_ and not filled.

He looks up through the half open window, where Lance is standing stiff at attention for some sight that lays beyond, like a dog standing alert at a shuddering bush. Hopefully whatever he’s worried about is just as tame and irrelevant. “What is it?”

“I think they’re— I think they recognize me.”

“Who?” Keith presses, because nearly everyone recognizes them by now —he’s getting flashbacks of bug-eyed lady— it wouldn’t be surprising if Lance got a discount for their snack he’d bought moments ago. But the store was empty then, anything within a couple miles seems empty, and Keith feels like they're in Radiator Springs before Lightning Mcqueen turned the whole town around. Right as the thought passes, a cheap street light flickers before dying away. Yeah, this place is quite the attraction… 

“Just— random people, they’re girls.”

He feels his face deadpan at that. “Woww, Lance McClain getting attention from _girls_? Someone call the cops.”

“Ergh,” Lance grumbles but his eyes wander anywhere except Keith’s insulting direction. “No, they’re _teenage_ girls. The ones that go absolutely ballistic and—“

“Oh well shit.”

“Yeah so get in the back so they don’t see you with me,” Lance ushers, and his leg starts to bounce, boot scraping the rough road underneath.

Keith huffs and crosses his arms, but the pale pink sweater makes the gesture less affronted and more obnoxiously… childish. “I’m not getting in the back, why should I get in the back? That’s stupid.”

“Get in the back, Keith.”

“No.”

“Hurry up— god, you’re just as bad as me.” Lance yanks the nozzle out and hooks it back onto the holder. “They’re coming Keith. Get in the fucking back or we’ll have fifty interviews about how this honeymoon went and our PR won’t hear the end of it.”

“Okay, I’m getting in the back,” Keith’s stubborn attitude flips abruptly because those magazines have scarred his eyes and he can’t risk another issue from that scrapbook party being released to CVS. Goddamn he was so close to those Doritos…

He makes to dive over the console between the front seats, and his ass gets wedged uncomfortably in the narrow space for a second before the cushions finally give. He can feel the car rock from the weight of his body after an awkward landing that leaves his arm sore.

“ _Heyy!_ ” Lance says with his friendliness amped up from the usual eight to a ten, likely for distraction while Keith piles their bags on top of himself and another (probably ridiculous) sweater just to be sure.

The exchange is muffled from outside Keith’s sweater-clad ears, and the only thing he can catch is _“—sign this?”_ and then a flash across the sliver of sight Keith has between a backpack on his face and a fairly large nerf gun leaning against this mountain of stuff. Lance has just so many _things_ in here, and although he’s nineteen now, Keith is ninety percent sure that toy belongs to him and not any children in the family. Lance will always be the youngest, literally and in spirit, and if the way his siblings have teased him is anything to go by, the rest of the McClains would surely agree.

A couple minutes later and he’s ready to just fling this Christmas sweater (distinguished by the puffball ornaments) off his face and breath in the car’s air filled with a cheap scent from the freshener hanging onto the rear view mirror and a tinge of gas sweeping in from the still half open window. Press be damned, if a sweet intake of oxygen can fill his lungs, then he’ll get on with this stupid honeymoon and ride another hill in the rollercoaster his life of unwanted fame has come to.

Another rock of the car saves him from the act, though, after the voices have died away and Lance slams the driver door shut then mumbles an _“All clear.”_

Keith launches up, swatting that suffocating Christmas fabric off his face and into his lap, then breathes in just the air he’d recalled two seconds ago. Lance huffs and turns the keys in the ignition before the car shudders to life and a few more miscellaneous items roll off Keith’s body and onto the floor. He senses an eye roll when the other goes “You’re so dramatic” as he crams back to his rightful place at the front of the car. Any home Lance makes for himself is a mess, and Keith should’ve known by the state of the man’s room on the castle ship. The things he does for this guy…

“Mm yeah I get it from someone,” He bites back over the undertone of that familiar fondness while brushing off the carebear sweatshirt and carding a hand through his hair.

He looks over to Lance a moment later, when the car hasn’t moved at all and the other is staring at him with one hand on the wheel and an incredulous smile stretched across his face. “I hate you,” Lance says with a shake of his head before turning his attention back to their journey. Keith does his best not to dwell on the way those blue eyes didn’t falter, and sent a message completely opposite of what Lance’s mouth had delivered.

“Definitely not,” He says and picks the bag of goodies off the console to fumble through while they carry off to the next destination.

“Whatever.” Lance jabs a finger onto the volume dial and the radio comes to life, but the music is muffled by static since they’re past the outskirts of their last town. “Just eat your candy, mister sweet tooth.”

Keith tears open his sour worms— “That I will…” —and doesn’t notice the other flash at the car window as they pull out of the gas station.

🧸❤️🧸

“You gotta be kidding me,” Keith says only a few minutes into settling in their room at a decent motel and connecting to the wifi network just to be faced with _this_. It’s a mirror to Lance’s own _“You’ve gotta be kidding me”_ when he’d opened the door, and suddenly the reception lady’s ominous behavior made sense because she’d hooked them up with that single bed cliche. Whether they’ve read that magazine or not, the majority of anyone who knows even remotely of Keith and Lance (aka more than half the _world_ ) are utterly invested in this coupling up. What’s it called, “shipping” or something?

“It’s another picture isn’t it?” Lance asks without turning away from the generous amount of alcohol he’s poured into one of the motel’s provided glass cups. He must’ve had the bottle in his bag before. 

Keith doesn’t point out the fact that technically Lance is underage, just on the brink of turning 20 toward the end of this summer. Why this man still has that Christmas sweater at this time of year, Keith wouldn’t know, and probably never will. Aside from that, they’d accidentally gotten wine drunk at about seventeen when the castle ship’s cabinets turned out to be less kid friendly than they initially assumed. He still holds onto that memory of them clinging onto one another in the kitchen, with Keith constantly bursting into giggles and Lance’s hair curling at the edges from a layer of sweat. Shiro had walked into their little scene with the face of someone who’d just seen a two-headed ghost, which is fair given their foolish rivalry status at the time.

“Yeah,” He tells Lance, looking at an image of their current selves sitting in the car from half an hour ago, as opposed to his brief mental recap of their teenage moments. “We don’t have that privacy we used to,” He continues, feeling a bit annoyed at this discovery that’s disappointedly become a bit old by now.

“We were in space, Keith,” Lance says bluntly, if not a little amused before climbing onto the bed with his long legs clad in a set of pajama pants dotted with little reindeers —alright, he’s _gotta_ be obsessed with December or something— and a white tank top that leaves little to the imagination. Keith’s got a Beastie Boys t-shirt on, which Lance was thrilled to discover he owned, and plain black boxers. They’re attire is quite the opposite, along with routine since he’s been endlessly subjected to harassment about brushing his teeth before breakfast the moment Lance caught onto his habit.

He lowers his phone to level Lance with a look. “What, you like it or something?”

“‘m just sayin’ it’s something we gotta get used to.” He swallows some of the drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing from the movement, before setting it onto the nightstand with a good fourth of it still full. “I think I forgot about the nastiness we’d come across, ya know? I thought Loverboy Lance could’ve been some untouchable icon but obviously not.” He shares a chuckle with Keith. “Lot of political stuff, and— and other stuff too just… my family, and our team, and what we did as soldiers…”

“I know what you mean,” Keith responds truthfully. He gets it, not the hopeful expectations part, but knowing that past those flashy articles and magazines, there’s the controversy of everything they’ve done, or anything the media can get their hands on. Every action is ripped apart and eaten up by unforgiving mouths to spit back what they did wrong and what they _should’ve_ done instead. “I’m sorry,” He says with the thought of how caring Lance is for his own family. It’s unfair and draining.

“Yeah…” Lance shifts down from leaning on the pillows to laying on his side, cradling his hands in the space between them. His mouth twitches. “I like the fun parts, though.”

“Like what?”

A few seconds pass, Lance’s smile grows wider and more smug. “You know, the stuff about us,” He says with a little charm and humor in this voice.

Keith lets a groan rip from the core of his chest and he turns his body away to glare at the ceiling. Lance snorts before jumping into a fit of laughter, and Keith can’t tell whether what he’d said was a joke or not until asking “You’ve read it?”

“I bought the magazine.”

“You bought the magazine?!” He looks at Lance incredulously.

“Yeah! It was on the console in my car! I was waiting for you to see it but apparently even your _cat eyes_ can’t see in the dark.”

Of course Lance pulls this shit on _them_ because it’s not some suggestive outlook on Lance’s life, it’s _Keith_ being dragged along with this. The other’s legacy of being a right hand man has built past their roles in Voltron and into his social life. Keith has become less stoic and more engaging, Lance has become less petty and more… whatever the hell this is.

“I hate you,” He says with that matching, non-hostile energy to Lance earlier in the car.

“No you don’t,” Lance says knowingly and props himself on his elbow.

Keith throws a pillow at him, one after the other with every line Lance recites. _“Five Moments Keith Kogane had Heart Eyes—“_ _Smack!_ He sits up to grab the other pillow underneath while Lance flings off the first one. _“—only makes his fellow paladin’s fondness—“ Smack!_ Lance throws one back and Keith swings his legs off the edge of the bed to retrieve the pillows Lance had tossed away before. _“Keith wearing an adoring smile—“_

“I’m gonna kill you!”

“Baby, I know _all_ the lines and I’ll keep goin’!” Lance shoots back cockily and bites onto his lower lip with a kiddish grin while grabbing the last pillow on the bed.

_Baby, baby, baby—_

Keith grabs one for each hand and launches himself Lance’s way to where his friend stands clumsily on the bed and stumbles in a last minute effort to dodge Keith’s attack. He ends up falling anyway.

“Say uncle,” he grunts once he’s got Lance squirming under his half-pin, but the latter is laughing in a chorus of amused hums that tumble out in puffs from his nose.

Lance cranes his neck just enough to flip his head over in Keith’s direction and stare at him with a smirk just above his (unfairly toned) shoulder. “What if I’m enjoying myself?”

Keith has a minor heart attack. Alright, maybe more of the _“I haven’t died but I may as well have”_ kind where blood starts rushing up his neck and racing to his cheeks and _hopefully enough to spare his dick_. His grip falters, then tightens around Lance’s wrist where he keeps his arm twisted behind his back.

“You wouldn’t,” Lance says, and the gleam of his teeth peak through his curved lips.

But Keith pushes the other’s wrist up anyway, up into the divot between his shoulders until muscle starts to pull taught and tense under and around the thin fabric of his tank top and Lance’s face finally scrunches before his hisses in mild pain. “Okay, okay, okay got it—“

Keith wonders about different circumstances Lance could’ve had that reaction.

Then he lets go, and immediately gets flipped over in the space Lance has caged him in. “Know your place, Kogane— _AGH!_ ” Keith whips another pillow and it knocks against the side of his head, rendering Lance off balance from the impact and flopping onto the bed. The tension was amped up to a solid seven, on the brink of an eight, and Keith’s dick can tolerate a _four_ right now.

He crawls back up the bed and drags a pillow along with him. Lance smacks his ass with the back of his hand. “You’re dumb,” he says and goes to join their original place. Yeah, Keith is also _gay_ and Lance is getting quite comfortable right now.

“No you.” That’s a meme, right?

Lance sidles up next to him—“No I’m not.”— then finishes his drink in a swig and sets it back down. He turns to Keith. “I’ve got an idea.”

Lance McClain and ideas don’t exactly work well together, and Keith wonders the damage that would result in humoring whatever is on his friend’s mind.

“What is it?” He tries to say in a flat voice, somewhat of a warning that he may not be too eager for what’s at hand, but Lance already knows that so he’s met with his millionth smile of the night.

“Let’s give them what they want.” _Them? Who? Like—_ “I’m not saying anything official, but they like this, Keith. I’ve had enough of the nasty shit we get for fighting in a war and even saving the freakin’ planet. If the public goes ballistic over only a shot with us in the same frame, then so be it. Let’s put a little love out there or somethin’.”

Keith doesn’t know where to begin with this, _who_ bothered Lance to this extent, and _why_ he figured this to be a plausible idea. What’s the outcome? It’s a curveball that otherwise would’ve hit the more sensitive aspects of their lives involving more uptight, confidential information that would spur a universal freak out, like the mysteries they’ve encountered in space and the likeliness of their return. So by Lance’s _“Let’s put a little love out there”_ he really means to say—

“You wanna convince the public that we’re dating,” Keith sums up. “Because…”

“Not like _that_ , Keith. They already think we’re dating— hell, some people are convinced we’re engaged! We’re like the _Larry Stylinson_ of the entire planet,” He tells Keith with an utterly convinced expression. “Maybe even beyond that.”

“Who’s that?”

“Wha-? Nevermind…” Lance rolls his eyes, even though he’s the one making less sense out of the two of them. “But we do what we’re already doing, and let things run their natural course.”

Keith isn’t entirely sure whether he’s fond or tired of Lance’s habit in putting together spiels of nonsense, just to say what he meant _the entire time_ at the end. And with the way he walks his fingers up Keith’s arm and says “Everyone already thinks I make a good boyfriend”, then boars his eyes into Keith’s confused ones, he’s still indecisive.

Keith takes hold of his hand, but doesn’t pull it away. It’s strange. Completely, utterly strange how they’ve spent about two years in space together (and two additional ones for Keith), faced off with the most terrifying universal threat there was, nearly died together in battle (multiple times), and now they’re here on a bed in the most decent room you can find in an otherwise shady motel, with Lance pouncing on an idea that would have eighteen year-old Keith’s heart doing gymnastics.

“Well I’d make a better one,” He says, because although it’s embarrassing and Keith has never been in a relationship before, let alone one that’s less official and more so teasingly implied, the press has made it quite obvious he seems all in. Funnily enough, it almost rivals the other’s “loverboy” persona. He just hopes he doesn’t end up with an obnoxious nickname too.

“Don’t make this a competition.” Lance smirks, and his hand still remains in Keith’s grasp.

“Why?” Keith drags him closer and Lance leans in willingly. “Cause I’d win?”

_I just need somebody to looooove_

_I-I don’t need too much_

_Just somebody to love_

_Somebody to looo—_

“We aren’t finished here,” Lance mutters before plucking his phone off the bedside table and answering the call.

Keith isn’t sure what the conversation is about the moment Lance has switched to his native tongue to speak to his mother. The words tumble seamlessly from his mouth with an attractive lilt, and Keith is sure whatever chat they’re having is less about anything romantic and more about the fact that Lance had overestimated the amount of energy they’d have for the night, which explains why they’re here instead of at the hospital. Nonetheless, hearing an organized flurry of words like this has Keith wanting the call to stretch on a bit longer, just to appreciate _this_ in its entirety, along with how Lance has been too sidetracked to acknowledge he’s half leaned over Keith by now.

But all good things come to an end, well, almost.

“She wants to talk to you,” Lance hands over the phone and it slides easily into his open hand, but his brain has a harder time catching up. He’s well aware of Rosa’s welcoming, motherly nature that’s left his heart swelling and Lance’s cheek with a tinge of pink because apparently having an affectionate family is something to be embarrassed about. He’s become a sucker for this though, so any way to stay on this woman’s good side is worth doing.

“Hello?”

“Keith!” Rosa nearly shouts over the phone, but he’s already got it an inch or so away from his ear to avoid any damage, thanks to the lesson he’s learned with Veronica earlier. He brings the phone back in before she continues. “Oh _mijo_ , I’m so happy you’re coming over to see Maricela.”

He smiles fondly and looks over into Lance’s dazed and waiting eyes. “Yeah, of course.”

“Don’t tell me Lele is dragging you along… You know how he is, I’m sorry you must’ve been so busy with work before,” She says apologetically. But it’s so sweet and familiar that Keith is sure he would’ve struck down any scheduled plans for this if he had them to begin with.

“ _Lele_ can be a handful,” Keith pointedly recites the nickname to tease his friend. Apparently it takes an entire space expedition and back to find out _Lance_ is a version of _Leandro,_ which his entire family refers to him as, (mostly his parents). Keith was convinced these people were talking about a whole other McClain when he first heard the name in the Garrison hospital. Sylvio, just a random little boy at the time who looked scarily similar to his teammate, had peeked shyly into his room asking for an “Uncle Leo”, to which Keith was entirely dumbfounded. Until his little hands clutched the door handle tighter with realization and he added _“Oh, I mean Lance”_ as an afterthought. Lance, Leandro, Leo, and _Lele_ because apparently that was a lot easier for his nephew and niece to catch onto when they were only babies.

It’s adorable.

“But no, I wanted to come along so don’t worry,” He reassures both for Rosa and for the pout on her son’s face. “I hope you don’t mind though…”

“Of course not, you’re always welcome! We’ve got the other little ones dying to see you anyway.” Rosa gives a hearty laugh. Right, Keith is admittedly skeptical about that one. He’s sure Sylvio wants to play magic leap-frog with Kosmo again more than anything else.

Lance lifts his hand to card his fingers through Keith’s bangs, sweeping them away from his face to tuck behind his ear. It sends a pleasant thrill from his head to his toes, even though this has happened a million times, always followed by something like _“God you need a haircut”_ , which Lance mouths to Keith right now.

“I look forward to it,” he says fondly and uses his free arm to tug Lance down until he’s no longer impatiently hovering, and instead, impatiently… cuddling.

“Make sure my son doesn’t do anything stupid,” Rosa says with an air of humor in her voice.

Lance scoffs, sending a jolt through the side of Keith’s body before he settles completely. It _should_ feel foreign to have him so close, to have Lance hook their ankles together and continue to twirl the ends of Keith’s hair and nose at the space next to his ear. It should and it does, but not in the way he expected. For all the time he’s lacked such closeness, it only seems strange because this is what it must be like to feel whole again.

“I will,” He promises, but finds it best not to add _“He does the same for me too._ ”

“ _Gracias._ Be safe okay? I have to go now.”

“Alright.” He keeps his arm anchored at Lance’s waist; the latter doesn’t budge.

“Love you, _cariño,_ ” Rosa says fondly, and although Keith is anything but familiar with their language, he understands _that_ word. The one that makes his belly warm and heart clench and mind muddled because this woman can find a family in anyone, and Keith feels lucky enough to be pulled along.

“Love you too.”

Lance perks up. “Love you, Mama!” He calls out before settling back on Keith’s shoulder. Rosa chuckles and their call ends after one last _“Love you, Lele.”_

He sets the phone aside, takes into account the empty glass there, and things start to (sort of) make sense. “That drink setting in for ya?” He turns back to Lance.

They’re nose to nose when Lance’s eyes flutter open, a deep blue in the soft light and his pupils retract shyly before dilating twice as wide. He stares at Keith with something too empty or too full for him to understand, so he waits for Lance to crack the code on his own. He waits for Lance to notice Keith is playing along with something he would’ve never done before because he at least likes _this._ He likes the closeness and how comfortably he’s leaned on and being looked at like a living daydream.

Lance’s gaze hangs low and it takes an extra second and a gliding hand up his back to lift those eyes just so to get a small head shake in return. “No.” He adds another shake just to be sure, but he isn’t fooling anyone.

“Such a liar,” Keith dismisses and rolls his eyes.

Lance tucks his lips in to hide a smile, but it lifts his cheeks and reveals a little dimple when they fold back out to say “‘m not lying.” But his eyes are low again, like a weight has kept them just a couple inches under Keith’s eyes and looking elsewhere takes extra effort.

“No?”

“Mm mm.”

“Look at me, Lance.” He uses his nose to nudge the other, since both of his hands stay clinging to Lance’s tapering back. He can feel the muscles underneath the tank top fabric twitch.

The bottle of alcohol is sat still on a nearby counter. Only _alcohol_ and not vodka, liquor, tequila and so on because the name that’s printed across its curved surface is in unrecognizable text, undoubtedly alien from the way the liquid inside glows a faint silver at the bottom and catches the bedroom light to reveal grains of sparkles. It’s like a lava lamp for adults, he thinks stupidly. But the aesthetic is undoubtedly part of the reason Lance must have bought it.

“Did you get that from the alley?” He asks. It’s less of an alley and more of a city, clustered with vendors and all sorts of entertainment from PG rated shows to sights he would pay to have burned out of his mind. The alleyways in between are packed with shady stalls that line the cement walls, and usually the sellers have a body part missing, a marking that takes up half their face, or the alien equivalent to a set of rotting teeth. Or all three. Whatever the combination, he knows over half of them should be in jail just by how unsettled he got from the few times he’d passed by.

“Safeway,” Lance mumbles, and by the way he looks at Keith with humor in his eyes, it’s hard to tell how legitimate he’s being.

“You didn’t,” he says, caught between blunt skepticism and disbelief.

“I did! Loverboy Lance gets away with a lot of things…” Lance trails and his hand smooths down to the base of Keith’s neck, playing with the thin fabric of his collar. Keith feels his breath catch for a moment right at the spot, like the air he takes in follows the path of Lance’s hand and it's a struggle to flow anywhere else.

His argument is ridiculously accurate, though. Because while Lance can pass through with little fight and a lot of charm, Keith drew the short end of the stick. Meaning that while his teammate _apparently_ bought alien alcohol at a fuckin’ Safeway, despite his age being one Google search away, _Keith’s_ age has become a worldwide controversy. It’d be laughable if it weren’t so frustrating, because some governors have established that he is officially 21 years old, other’s stubbornly claim he’s 19, and some even put “ _unknown”_ to save the effort. So sharing a planet with hundreds of newly encountered, inhuman species is a concept that can easily be grasped, but a time warp isn’t? Right.

“Like those reindeer pants?” He tries for a joke, just to catch his breath from this touchy-feely, increasingly tipsy Lance. It’s as effective as snorkeling with a straw.

“Whaaat?” Lance drags out and uses the hook he’s got on Keith’s ankle to sling the rest of his pajama-clad leg over. “You’re in no place to speak mister _cropped jacket_ —“

“That doesn’t even fit me anym—“

“—fter all this time too, Walmart stays winning so—“

“Wha- _Walmart—?_ ”

“—to critique my fashion because you’re in your _underwear_ right now and I’m being decent here.” Lance finishes with the seventh lazy poke to Keith’s chest. His mouth is drooped a little under the steady weight of sleepiness and his sobriety tapering away. Keith hopes this building reaction the drink has jumpstarted will stop around here, and not end with Lance blacked out from whatever else may be in store from this shady concoction. They don’t need any reason to be going to the hospital other than visiting Maricela.

“You know who would side with me?” Lance carries on without a pause. Lucky for Keith because the only response he’d had in mind for the underwear comment had been _“What, you want them off?”_ and he probably wouldn’t be prepared for any kind of answer to that.

“My followers,” Lance finishes once he scoops up his phone and opens the Instagram app.

“Such a baby…” Keith murmurs when Lance swipes to the camera setting and makes an achingly slow recording that zooms into his patterned pajama pants, (with Keith’s bare leg blatantly showing underneath), until all that’s left is pixels buzzing across the screen like TV static, and the image is no longer decipherable.

Keith watches as Lance fumbles with his phone and pulls up the voting feature with wavering fingers. His typing is sluggish, and the result ends up being _“pajamsss?: YES or YES”_

And before he knows it, it’s sent out for the world to give their two cents on, if the question can even be deciphered. But he had no intention of trying to help beforehand, because now he’s wheezing uncontrollably into Lance’s boney shoulder, and the other boy seems to be none the wiser.

“What?” Lance asks with an air of childlike innocence.

“That doesn’t—“ He chokes, then tries to regain his composure but the smile remains and he knows his cheeks will start to ache if he humors this for too long. “That doesn’t make any sense, Lance you just—“ God he can’t do this. “ _Pajamsss_ …” He mutters weakly into the crook of Lance’s neck.

“It literally makes perfect sense dude I don’ even know why this is so funny,” Lance’s words tumble one after another when the drunk slurs start to catch up. His free hand cuts through the air to video that’s been replaying endlessly on the screen just to somehow accentuate his point. “It says _D’you like the pajamas?_ And then they say yes, Keith, ‘m pretty sure I know how this app works but thanks…”

Keith lets himself ride out one more fit of laughter before his sides start to ache and Lance is genuinely convinced he’s being made fun of.

“You’re too much, Lance…” He sighs pleasantly, just one more jump of chuckles before fluffing up Lance’s hair, then a brief moment of reluctance until he gives into the obligation of lifting himself from the bed to flick off the light switch.

“Am I really?” Lance asks in the dark, his goofiness turned to a calm vulnerability with the same easiness as the lights going out.

Keith’s heart aches at the misinterpretation. “Of course not, Lance.” He helps his friend out of bed, a task that takes way longer than necessary since Lance has been rendered to clumsy legs and steadies himself on Keith’s shoulder as the covers are yanked down just enough for them to crawl back into. “Too good, Lance, don’t worry about it,” he finishes once they’re settled and Lance is back to cocooning Keith in a cage of now drunken affection when he tests the limits of Keith’s personal bubble. It’s been weakened so much to the point where Keith wonders if it even applies in scenarios like this anymore.

Lance has always found a way to make himself known and comfortable around Keith since they’re time of returning to the Garrison. It took off from the time he’d sent a shock through Keith’s heart by slumping down the hall with an IV hooked up to his arm, just to stop by and pour apologies for things Keith had long forgotten about since then, so easily it’s almost embarrassing to accept. _“I was such a dick to you. You’re not a loner, and I… I shouldn’t have said those things on our way home.”_ A reference to the team’s unfortunate spiral into temporary insanity, when all that was left had been an ongoing abyss of _nothing_ , nothing but the promise of grounding memories of what they’d once been.

 _“I didn’t wanna leave you guys,”_ Keith had said, although it’d been made obvious several times before, Lance in particular had taken that farewell to the Blades to heart. _“I didn’t wanna leave_ you. _”_

Their hug was awkwardly placed since Keith could only lean up just enough from the reclined cushion of his bed. But it was an acceptance nonetheless, and since then Lance seemed to take it upon himself to build off the newly established bond. He’d support with a loyal hand on Keith’s shoulder, use entitled comfortableness to freely sling his legs over Keith’s on any couch they happened to lounge on, teach goofy dances and handshakes and pull loose headlocks and other subtle things that eventually fed into _their_ image that ultimately rocketed past other celebrity news, landing them as what Lance had claimed before: the _“Larry Stylinson”_ of the entire planet. Keith still has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, or who that person is, but apparently he’s quite a big deal.

“Okay,” Lance murmurs, taking Keith’s addition in stride, and sliding easily into his arms as well as the welcoming embrace of sleep. He’ll likely be snoring Keith’s ear off by morning but it’s a sacrifice worth making.

2:28 AM: _@reallancemcclain_ ’s _IG story_ • 17.6M views

_@klcanonking_

_YALL HEAR THAT “Baby…” IN THE BEGINNING?? DEAD._

2,067,398 likes

🧸❤️🧸

“God my phone’s blowing up…” Keith hears Lance murmur through the dense cloud of morning grogginess that muddles his surroundings.

He blinks a few times, then goes to lift his hands and rub the sleep out of his eyes but one arm feels like electric carbonation in a McDonald’s Sprite, and the other is cramped in places he hadn’t assumed were too important until they _ache_ from just a slight shift. “Agh…” He tugs until Lance absently gets the memo and lifts just enough for Keith to retrieve his lifeless limb. “You killed my arm, Lance.”

“Get a new one.” Lance continues to scroll through his phone, leaning on his fully functioning elbow (thanks to the privilege Keith had provided). “Can’t be that hard, Shiro did it.”

Keith rolls his eyes, then his arms with a painful hiss. “This is your fault,” he grumbles and lifts himself off the bed. His Sprite arm’s tingling starts going down, fizzing back to solidity after a couple shakes while the other stretches out stubborn knots.

“ _Technically_ it’s that magical potion’s fault,” Lance pointedly says, but his attention remains on his phone.

“You mean the one _you_ bought? And purposefully brought here?” Keith snatches it off the counter, some of the thicker grains inside knock together like crushed ice and they still dazzle in the light just like before. It’s surprisingly light in his hand for something that’s supposedly got some type of debris inside.

Lance finally tosses his phone aside and shifts his attention to Keith’s morning crankiness. But the ruffled sight of him has Keith's heart soften around the edges, just like Lance’s tousled hair and rumpled pajamas and the friendly droop of his half awake eyes. He drapes his arms loosely over his folded knees and sends Keith an innocent smile. “Yeah, that one! I like how you knew exactly what I was talking about…”

He levels Lance with a flat deadpan, sending every wave of unamused energy his way but Lance only smirks, then does little to hide the up-and-down trip his gaze takes when Keith hooks a hand on his hip. It… is too much, he’s only in his boxers and a sleep shirt for god’s sake, and apparently that idea of Lance’s bold digs being thrown out the window once he’s sober again was a total myth.

“Whatever,” he murmurs and turns the bottle over in his hands to take a look at the foreign text up close. “I’m gonna see what this says.”

If it were released to the market that means it’s safe, right? All products are run through a list of safety requirements and such, especially since aliens have shimmied their way into the economy and launched their own booming businesses. It should be acceptable to some degree, right? A bigger red flag would’ve been from the alley, where fairy dust-like stuff like this isn’t as big as the undoubtedly dangerous mixtures and trinkets for sale, unbeknownst to government surveillance.

He opens one of the few apps on his own phone, _“Uni-lingo”_ , with matching fluency to Duolingo but with a five-eyed mascot and a scan feature to translate what is otherwise gibberish to Keith. A buffering sign bounces onto the screen once he places the text under his camera, and it takes a minute or so for the shitty wifi to do him a favor but eventually the screen blinks green and erupts tiny animated fireworks along the sides to celebrate its success.

“What’s it say?” Lance asks curiously as he springs off the bed and pads over to where Keith is hovering over his phone screen.

_“DIONYSUS: Intoxicating Sleep Elixir”_ Lance reads from the screen. He straightens. “Huh…”

It’s relieving at the least, knowing Lance had basically gotten drunk off alien Benadryl and not some shit that would fuck up his insides and short term memory like Everclear. “So basically—“ he shuts off his phone and tosses it aside “—you were just a sleepy drunk.”

“I don’t think I was that bad,” Lance counters at Keith’s subtle implication of _“you definitely weren’t all there”_. “I just don’t understand why you’d let me post ‘ _pajamsss’_ —“ he lifts air quotes “—on my story. Now I just look stupid.”

Keith feels the little burst of laughs bubbling from his chest, too late for him to stop. “ _Pajamsss_ …” He quotes weakly. “My god, that was gold. And don’t worry, you already look stupid.” He gives Lance’s shoulder a little pat.

“ _Ugh!_ ” Lance scoffs and swats his arm. “Am _not_ , and you were totally all over me anyway—“

“Wh—“ Oh shit, is he actually being called out? It wasn’t that bad, technically Keith wearing his heart on his sleeve last night was the remedy for Lance’s loose inhibitions and pulse-stuttering need for closeness. Technically he was giving what he was getting, or getting what he was given, or… or something like that.

“— _I’m Keith and I call Lance_ baby _because he’s the best person on Earth_ —“

When the hell… _Oh_ alright, it was just that. “I called you _a_ baby, Lance. I said _you’re such a_ —“

“Nope! Not hearing anything. All I hear is heart eyes for _Loverboy_ Lance.” He says suggestively, then brings his hand up and tucks his palm underneath Keith’s chin, squishing together his cheeks like a doting grandmother would and turning his head side to side. “ _Moochie moochie moochie_.”

Keith grunts, grabbing onto Lance’s wrist and trying to rip his hand away to free from that sturdy hold. “I’ll moochie your _face_ if you don’t quit it,” He says in his best threatening tone, but it delivers all distorted and silly through his puckered mouth and Lance doesn’t relent until his arm is finally shoved away after another moment of struggle. “Dibs on the shower cause you suck,” He finishes, stretching his cheeks to circulate the blood flow after Lance’s assault.

“Have at it,” Lance says with ease and dives back onto the bed. “I’ll be basking in the limelight since one hundred percent of my followers approve of these” —he gestures to those stupid reindeer pants— “designer clothes.”

Keith rolls his eyes. This entire trip has his brain getting motion sickness from his exasperated reactions and it hasn’t even been a whole day yet. “That’s cause you didn’t give them much of a choice.”

“They didn’t need one.” Lance flicks his wrist.

“You’re awful,” Keith says before stepping into the bathroom and swinging the door shut behind him.

It takes him halfway through his shower to realize that earlier he’d basically told Lance he’d _kiss_ his face during their little squabble, and the lack of resistance from the other shouldn’t be something to read into, but he does anyway.

🧸❤️🧸

“Hey.” Lance pokes Keith’s arm from where he’s buckled into the passenger seat, since he’s… well, just in case that Benadryl has taken any toll on his motor skills and coordination. “Let’s go get food, I found a dollar.”

Keith sighs, continuing to gaze at the road ahead that winds through an exhausting, empty expanse of desert and the overall rural land of Arizona. Saguaros crowd all over either side, almost rivaling the number of _rocks_ scattered across the fine, dusty dirt underneath and parading up nearby mountains until the rest disappear on the other side. Cheap, wired fences separate the clusters of nature from the road, and if he pays enough attention, there’s the occasional roaming of cattle.

It’s beautiful, honestly, but the _heat_ has him panting at the wheel, even with all the windows rolled down and the shitty, borderline broken AC on blast (which is almost as effective as if he’d fan himself just by waving his hand). The pleasant view ahead can only be distracting for so long until his limbs start melting uncomfortably at their sweaty joints, like wax dripping down the edge of a candle. It’s about noon now, if he can trust this rickety car’s faint, digital clock that flickers the numbers every now and then. He’d gotten pretty sick of hearing crackling static from their disconnected radio too, so all there is is the violent wind flapping his bangs into his eyes once every two seconds, the steady sound of the car roving over worn out road, and Lance’s occasional attempt at conversation.

“We can stop at the next restaurant we see,” he responds patiently, because he too is hungry since they’d only snacked on beef jerky for breakfast before dipping out the motel and past the smug front desk lady. “A dollar isn’t enough, I can pay though,” He offers.

Lance makes a satisfied hum. “That’s good cause I got it from your wallet.”

“Wh— Lance! Don’t go through my shit, dammit.” He takes one hand off the wheel to swipe his dollar back and stuff it into the pocket of his shorts, all the while Lance offers no fight and settles only on cackling wickedly.

“I like the photo you’ve got of me in there,” Lance says. Keith already knows what he’s talking about, the one where Lance has got his palm up to rest against Red’s metal while the other hand holds out his camera to snap the picture, flashing an excited smile. Only a sliver of the lion’s profile can be seen, considering just the plate of Red’s chin is nearly the size of Lance’s entire body. Keith only knows it’s Red even without his color scheme from the note scrawled across the white margin alongside the photo: _“Love this Red boy <3”_. He’s not sure if that had been implying anything. 

“Yeah, only because you were the one who put it in there,” Keith counters because it’s true, Lance will wedge himself into any mundane part of Keith’s life now, and although he’d been (and still is) quite fond of the photograph Lance tucked inside his wallet, he later had to avoid Shiro’s pointed stare after unfolding it to pay for their lunch sometime ago.

“And _you’re_ the one who kept it,” Lance delivers smoothly.

Keith glances over and catches Lance’s gaze. His eyes glow from a streak of sunlight, resembling what another one of those fairy dust-y concoctions would look like, where the outer rings of his irises are a thick blue and melt into a spotlight of gold near the center, the same way the ocean would bask under a bright summer sky and melt under the glaring sun. It’s got him on the brink of shifting under the weight of it, maybe bring a hand up and wipe the sweat off his own neck just to catch a sense of relief.

But instead he whips his head back to the road and tries to straighten their direction with ease, playing off any hints at the fact that Lance had thrown his attention and (almost) the car off balance.

Luckily, he catches sight of a shape peeking just over the sloping edge of the next hill that turns their conversation elsewhere. It’s tall and vibrant and definitely _man-made_ (alien-made?) and reads—

“ _Waffle House_ ,” Lance says once he’s followed Keith’s line of sight. “Hell yeah, baby!”

It’s like a haven on the horizon. The towering black pillar grows taller and taller as they wind around the curving road, and slowly, all those dull yellow blocks for each letter are fully displayed. He’s convinced this is what it must’ve been like for D.J. Drake and his crew in _Looney Tunes: Back in Action_ to find Walmart in the middle of the desert. And along with that thought, the way Lance has his crossed legs kicked up on the dashboard in casual composure seems quite fitting for Bugs Bunny. The rest of his character just as much, and it makes Keith chuckle under his breath before Lance lolls his head over. “What?”

“Nothing,” He shakes off the thought. The town ahead starts coming into view: gas stations, other cheap motels and hotels, Mexican restaurants, tattoo parlors, and thrift stores the deeper they go, but he only wades through the moderate traffic toward the beacon of light that calls to their growling stomachs.

He doesn’t find it hard to believe people call this place their home. All the short buildings are swallowed by jagged graffiti and faded street art made from swirls of warm colors, a lot of which are presented in reference to Mexican culture, which brings the town a sense of community he himself had grown to understand in the years he was raised among similar places in this state.

The more he dwells on that creeping sense of familiarity, the more vivid those once forgotten memories return in a wave of nostalgia. He imagines how this place would look bathed in an October sunset, where the town doesn’t overbear the view above and the sky’s otherworldly beauty cradles the people in puffy, orange-tinted clouds drifting toward a dusty pink horizon. He imagines damp grass and sugar skulls and how his plush cheek tickled at the sensation of wet face paint when his father took him to the _Dia de los Muertos_ festival his coworkers invited them to. He imagines the shy, yet longing sensation he’d felt to join the other kids that scrambled around, playing tag and rolling down short hills just to get grass stains on their clothes and a scolding from their mothers. He imagines clinging to his father’s hip and feeling that gentle but calloused hand ruffle his hair, and then beginning to cry because his seven year-old self didn’t know how to say he doesn’t want the night to end because it was just so _good_ and his dad is all that he has. Or had.

“ _Ay_ , you missed the turn!” Lance squawks, jolting Keith from his stupor and making him jerk the wheel a little before righting himself. It’s May now, not October, and the sky is blue with rolling white clouds.

“Sorry,” he murmurs and does a U-turn.

“Can’t see that baby if I’m hungry, Keith, I might eat her,” Lance says earnestly, but it’s strange enough to have Keith shaking in a fit of laughter once they pull into the parking lot. They planned to stop for lunch on their way over since Lisa is getting discharged at four o’clock before everyone would meet at her and Luis’ house about half an hour away in time for dinner to be prepared. He feels giddy, hopefully Rosa is making those enchiladas again.

“You’re so weird…”

“That’s what makes me so special!” Lance unbuckles, and with one leg out the car he turns as an afterthought to add on “Don’t forget your wallet.”

Keith huffs. “You’re one to talk.” He snatches up his wallet from where it had laid open on the console from Lance’s earlier stunt. Then he ducks back out and let’s the door swing shut behind him, only half trusting the weak chirp he gets from the car in response to clicking the lock button on Lance’s set of keys. He doesn’t want to be rude, but the only thing giving that junk some value is Lance’s age-old memories of supposedly chopping up Rachel’s hair in the backseat during a family road trip, having his first kiss on the hood and setting off the alarm after leaning back too heavily, plastering stickers on the windows from his dentist’s office that still remain there (albeit faded) today, and then a whole other list of things Keith didn’t pay half his mind to before he finally switched on the radio cause they’d still been in that sweet spot of town where the connection was clear.

So there’s _that_ , and also the fact that they’re famous now and people on eBay would pay millions for their sweat on a tissue. Disappointedly, it’s not an exaggeration, because that stunt was actually pulled by a desperate seller who’d at least known the insane lengths the fans of Voltron’s paladins would go for just a hint at… whatever the hell you can consider this as. The worst part was probably the fact that he’s _still_ unsure if someone really managed to get a hold of his sweat, or if it was entirely a scam.

“Ya love to hear it,” Lance says and fluffs up Keith’s hair as they walk toward the entrance, then wipes his hand on his shirt. “Ugh, so sweaty.” (Please don’t remind him). The bell gives a little jingle when Keith pulls it open for Lance, even when he’s being a little shit right now. It’s nice to know he’s got someone to mimic that gesture from his dad, although his mother tends to give him more of an awkward… pet. She’s trying her best.

They weave through tables with all sorts of dishes scoured across their surfaces, some of which he can’t find it in him to recognize. He’s still getting used to the clash in human and alien culture, where on the ground he’ll spot a regular set of battered sneakers, then slippers, then glittery high heels all aligned and think nothing of it until he glances back up and realizes they’re all attached to the same creature— (Creature? Is that rude?).

Lance seems to pay little mind to it though while he scrolls through his phone and snatches his arm away from a wandering, eight-fingered hand without sparing it a single glance. “ _Nope_ , dealt with that before.” He treks onward. Keith can’t recall off the top of his head which experience his teammate may be referring to, likely because Lance has had so _many_ inconvenient run-ins with other species, more than the rest of the crew, but it’s enough to have him bracketing Lance’s waist with his arm til they finally make it to their table. He tells himself it’s just to be safe, but he’s sure the sandy haired boy nearby that caught sight of the gesture wouldn’t believe that, going by the way his eyes light up with excitement. Here goes another fan post… 

The hostess departs once they’ve settled into their booth tucked against the side windows. She’d been more modest in her approach with them, only saying in a shy voice _“It’s great to have you two here. Uh… thanks for your service”_. Keith doesn’t blame that slight falter because he’s still adjusting to this whole “heroic leader” image, he’s only used to that role within the confines of actual missions with his team, not something plastered across the front of a magazine. _Damn_ , that magazine… He’s gotta forget about it, and the fact that Lance _bought_ it. He’d flung it onto the backseat the moment he spotted it on the console in broad daylight before Lance climbed in a moment later.

“This big boy need some hash browns,” Lance announces once the hostess is gone after his less than formal response of _“No problemo!”_ to her gratitude. He flips open the menu, it’s laminated seal warping from the movement, then props his elbow up on the table to lazily hold his cheek in his hand. It’s a bit cute, even though he looks kinda like a third grader with his mouth comically stretched at the corner from gravity’s pull.

“I want some eggs,” Keith throws out there because why not. 

“Eggs and ketchup,” Lance adds on, remembering Keith's strange (but totally common) food combo. He gave him shit for it until Keith made him try it in the Garrison cafeteria, to which he just muttered _“I guess it’s a little less terrible”_. Yeah, exactly.

“Mmmhmmm,” he hums along with a smirk and picks at the corner of his own menu before deciding on a full dish.

Lance takes until only a tic before their server arrives to settle on his order, which is apparently the exact same thing he always gets according to an earlier claim, followed by _“Hmm, but do I really want that?”_.

Keith gets ridiculously anxious at sit down restaurants when it comes to ordering under a time limit, well, he feels the same at any kind of restaurant. Sometimes he’ll just want to bang his head on the steering wheel in the drive thru because the speaker is so _quiet_ and he can’t just say _“What?”_ for the millionth time. It is simply illegal. And embarrassing. Keith, paladin and leader of Voltron, cannot order McDonald’s like a normal person.

But Lance takes care of it this time for him, after making his heart do an entire marathon and his legs bounce at hyper speed because _“He’s coming, Lance oh my god just choose already”_ then getting a _“Don’t worry about it!”_ back.

Lance rolls with everything so seamlessly it’s like he’s reading off a script and this Waffle House is simply a set full of props for this shitty _“Give Keith a Heart Attack!”_ show. Except Keith doesn’t have a script and doesn’t know any _lines_ so he hopes for the best, but of course his teammate has to pull a 180 and make shit embarrassing by starting off Keith’s order with _“And mister muscle man over here is gonna have…”_

It ends… alright. Their waiter being extra polite as to work through Lance’s ridiculous side comments, then taking off to the exposed kitchen area. Keith though, he’ll be making sure to add extra to the tip just to make up for it, even though the money is probably being given more out of an apology to himself over anyone else.

“I hate you,” he whispers into the nook his elbows have made on the tabletop to shield from Lance’s torment. “Just why…”

“I’m just being _friendly_ , that’s all,” Lance says with the most blatant mischief leaking into his tone. “You’ve got quite the muscle now.”

“Go to hell,” he mutters.

Lance scoffs.

And then something… _smooth_ passively slides along Keith’s calf like a curious dog nosing up someone’s leg. But as far as he’s aware, there are no pets (or anything now considered as such) allowed in Waffle House, and the last thing he needs is a foreign set of feet wandering over his body under the table the same way that curious hand had reached out to Lance earlier for god knows what reason. Sue him, he doesn’t want to be Woody from Toy Story with a snake in his boot (no matter the illegitimacy in that quote), and their planet’s got more tricks up its sleeve now so who knows? Perhaps it’s an Arusian caterpillar, otherwise known as the ugliest insect he’d ever seen, resembling something a little worse than a ballsack. 

“ _Whoa!_ ” Lance flinches when Keith suddenly jolts back, making the table shudder and anything on its surface wobble with it as he ducks over to peer at the space underneath. Dull tiles, a stray, crumpled napkin underneath his bench, and Lance’s beat up black converse ( _“They barely fit but I still love them, alright?”_ ) attached to a set of recognizable tan legs. No extra limbs to deceive him.

He uses his hold on the table’s edge to swing back upright, though still skeptical. “Something brushed my leg,” he says wearing a scowl and continues to ponder with a hand on his chin.

“Yeah, _my_ leg!” Lance exclaims and the sliding sensation returns with pointedly more pressure. “Don’t give me a heart attack next time, geez… Coulda thought something bit your foot off.”

“That was your leg?” Keith asks with a disbelieving look. “It was _soft_ though.”

Lance lifts his chin challengingly and brushes what Keith can now recognize as his _ankle_ back up Keith’s shin at an agonizingly slow pace, the faint rub of his sock following along the way, until finally hooking over Keith’s knee to rest the weight of his foot there. “Go on,” Lance says with clear confidence in the lift of his brows. “Feel it.”

Keith hesitantly slides his hand off the counter after giving a couple uncertain glances between his teammate in front of him, and the peek of shoe underneath his side of the table. He runs the pads of his fingers just over the edge of Lance’s sock, the red lining of which reads _“Merry”_ and he thinks he’ll have an aneurism if he finds _“Christmas”_ on the other foot even though it’s surely there.

It’s soft, _really_ soft. Not the creepy porcelain doll kind, or like the silky fabric on their old (but still used) Altean robes. No, it’s human. It’s like the bare and tender skin of his wrist, with something else to it. Maybe a lotion or… he doesn’t know, fabric softener for skin? But it’s almost like a… _newborn baby_. God, what a joke considering where they’re headed.

“Wow…” he trails, and lets the whole of his palm envelope the other’s ankle since the gloves his hands are usually confined in have been packed away, all sweaty now. It’d be like rewearing a pair of socks to continually use them in that state, especially considering how the current weather has them all sizzling like meat on a stove. Hopefully more of those clouds can come rolling in and ease some of their suffering.

“Mmhmm.” Lance eggs on with a satisfied smile. “I shaved yesterday.”

Right. Keith knew Lance would put up a bigger fight about not having time to shower earlier this morning after if he hadn’t taken care of it the day prior. Lance is an everyday or every-other-day wash type of person, but anything past that will send him into a fit.

“Why?” he asks, because Lance seems both like the type of person to do this, and the type _not_ to under differing circumstances.

“ _Why?_ Wh- you feel these bad boys?” Lance asks, even though Keith is technically only feeling _one_ of the bad boys. “I just like it this way sometimes.”

“Mm…” he acknowledges and continues to absentmindedly stroke along Lance’s skin. Well, until the air turns to quiet and he glances back up to see Lance sporting a deep flush along his neck and ears. Interesting. “You just wanted to compete with Maricela, huh?” he goes for knocking their intimate little session down a tick, as amusing as that blush may be.

“You think I’d compete with a baby? Like I’d do something so _low?_ ” Lance puts a hand to his heart and looks at Keith with comically wide eyes.

Keith shrugs in nonchalance. “You never know…” He does. Lance has had several dance offs with Sylvio before and needless to say, both of them need improvement. If there’s one thing Lance _did_ prove, it was that he’s got the same spike and crash energy pattern of a seven year-old. (And maybe… those hips don’t lie).

“You know what?” Lance leans up and retracts his leg, all that’s left there now are the lines of his shoe creased among a patch of red on Keith’s thigh from the pressure. He kind of misses it, but also from the way his skin there breathes freely, he shouldn’t too much. He learned enough from Sprite arm this morning. “You don’t _deserve_ me and my soft legs! Catch me never sleeping with you again because yours are _hairy_ ,” he finishes with a huff.

Lance must have this natural countdown in his mind, calculating the next moment in which saying things like _that_ would be largely more inconvenient than literally _any other time_. Is this planned or not planned? Keith wouldn’t know judging by Lance’s own unlucky streak, but what he _does_ know is the sandy-haired boy has got coffee dripping down his shirt now after a sudden ill-masked shock, the couple set in the booth behind Lance have gone suspiciously still, and then—

“Your uh, your drinks,” their waiter bluntly announces and sets down a glass of strawberry lemonade in front of Lance, and orange juice in front of Keith. He straightens, but the posture still holds an air of awkwardness the same way Keith’s choked out _“Thank you”_ is.

“Your food should be ready soon,” the boy, Dominic (according to his name tag), says and purses his lips. His dark arms are folded neatly in front of him, and his hair is styled into intricate braids that eventually tuck together at the base of his neck to form a bun. Keith sees that he’s quite young and the only thing he can take from that is _you deserve a lot better than any of this shit_. Food service seems just as painfully commanding as paladin work, without exaggeration. Apparently Shiro was once a server too before discovering the wonders of piloting, the poor man experienced both kinds of misfortune.

“Right-o!” Lance says and lifts the lemonade in acknowledgment before Dominic seems to find it in his best interest to get out of there before he’s dragged into another terribly out of context interaction.

Keith weakly knocks their drinks together with an exasperated sigh. Then they’re placed back on the table to swap in one mixed fluid motion, streaking small drips of condensation in their wake until Keith can snatch his lemonade to poke a straw in it, while Lance skips the formalities and chugs a good third of his orange juice in one go.

“Why’d you have to say it like that…” Keith sighs and lets the length of his straw twirl the ice this way and that, every movement sends a small _clink_ against the glass. He takes a generous sip.

Lance halts the barrage of juice down his throat with a thick swallow. His tongue laps up most of what’s been smeared across his upper lip, which is a sight not unlike Kosmo finishing up his own heaping meal. Keith really just misses his wolf. Now he’s sat in front of a man with that same lack of manners, but barely any excuse for it because he’s not a _dog_ he’s just… a bit eager.

“Sometimes I just don’t think before I talk.” Lance at least has it in him to tidy up more with a napkin now. “Remember? I’m the dumb one.”

And that flares something in Keith because he’s _not_ and that stupid fucking game show did little to help any of their team. Lance being legitimately dumb is as real as that projection of (the realistically long gone) Lotor had been. And all the moments of Lance’s deprecation that followed their impromptu guest feature had added to Keith’s immediate regret of saying _“I just don’t wanna be stuck here for eternity with Lance”_. Yeah, extremely fitting for him to pull that out of his ass when talking about one of the best people that’s ever entered his life. _Way to go_ , two years on a space whale taught him shit about maintaining important relationships, aside from his mother, who’d been the only one keeping him sane at the time.

“You’re _not_ dumb, Lance. Don’t say that,” he says, and he knows it’s one in the million other times he’s used that phrase by the familiar twitch in his friend’s face. He humors himself for a moment, thinking of how Lance must feel, and finds it upsetting that now it just seems like Lance’s own fault for the belief to begin with.

Lance laughs weakly and rubs his eyes, then lets his arms fall into a loose fold. “Not saying it won’t prove anything,” he responds as if reading Keith’s mind.

“Lance.” He’s stumped. The fuck happened to being the inspiring leader who delivers supportive, heart-wrenching speeches? Someone give him the script for this Waffle House scene, he can’t afford to see Lance turned to tears before getting those hash browns he wanted.

“Keith,” Lance says back with what must be an air of certainty at Keith’s loss for words. Wow, a lot to work with here.

He tries his best not to groan until his soul leaves his body and God can somehow bestow a good speech in his stubborn brain because _he’s_ the dumb one if anything. Fuck it, everyone is dumb. What is life anymore?

He opts for reaching out and taking Lance’s hands in his own, because that’s a start, right? Physical contact. The aliens in here must know more about human interaction than he does at this moment. “Uh…”

Lance’s hands are quite soft. And they put up little fight to Keith’s invitation, only faltering from a wavering confusion before they lay heavy and limp in Keith’s hold, barely reciprocating his grasp with just a faint curl of the fingers. 

His eyes follow Keith patiently too. There’s a dash of humor somewhere in his gaze but it still has an undercurrent of defeat, which Keith will _not_ be giving into because it’s unfair. Lance deserves… more. More validation, even with next to billions of admirers on just a few planets _alone_. And more credit, because Lance is a leader himself when Keith is caught slipping. And more… love and care and affection because Lance always seems to give his own heart out to the people without sparing it for himself. If it came down to it, Keith actually wouldn’t mind having Sprite arms and Sprite legs if it meant Lance could be at peace for just a moment.

But since Keith doesn’t keep tabs on his internal monologue, he can only carry through with: “I…”

“You…” Lance eggs on expectantly and Keith isn’t ready to disappoint. He holds on more firmly.

“I’m trying to, uh…”

“Trying to propose?” Lance offers. And—

Keith straightens, looks at his teammate weirdly but not entirely pulling away. “ _Propose?_ ”

“Yeah,” Lance said and bobs his head as if considering the idea. His usual comedic relief reactions have started to take a toll on Keith’s original mission at being _encouraging,_ but now he’s gotta sift past this layer before their conversation moves on. “You seemed nervous, and now you're holding my hands, about to tell me what an amazing man I am and how ever since I walked into your life things had changed for the better and now you’re, like, ten times more hopeful about the world than you were before.”

Huh, that was actually pretty spot on for only a joke.

“Oh, also, make sure this is the finger you’re lookin’ at every now and then, just for hints.” Lance lifts up his ring finger, giving it a little wiggle. “You can give it a lil kiss too.”

“My god, Lance, I’m not _proposing_ you moron,” He grumbles.

Dominic is in and out of the moment in no time, letting them resume the same setting, just with plates of steaming food in between.

“As you were saying?” Lance says amusedly.

“You’re just… you’re not dumb.”

“Mhmm.”

“And… we’d probably all be dead without you. This whole planet, I mean.”

“Mhmm.”

“And the team cares about you, as does nearly the rest of the world. _I_ care about you and honestly, if you think _you’re_ stupid then _I_ must be an idiot because we’re in this together. That’s why we’re here, going to see Maricela.”

He hopes the important parts of that make sense. And going by the steady stretch of Lance’s smile, and that dimple Keith had missed even from just a moment of it being gone, it does click in enough parts to feel at least a bit reassured. He has more time to be supportive on the road ahead, hopefully with more impact than this version though.

“Aww,” Lance coos, and Keith gives in to another eye roll. “That honestly makes me feel better, Keith. _Te quiero_.” He lifts Keith’s hand to place a brief, barely there kiss on the back but it still makes his entire body melt and solidify at once.

He quit Spanish in middle school after barely passing the first semester, so he has no idea what the hell his friend just said, but still tries to entertain the response with “Yeah, you’re welcome. Just eat your hash browns and be happy.”

“Will do,” Lance says with a smirk and lowers Keith’s hands back onto the table in favor of turning to his meal.

By the end of their meal, Lance has chugged nearly three glasses of orange juice, used half the napkin dispenser, and made Keith wonder all throughout how attractive he’s gotta be to get away with this. He leaves a twelve dollar tip before they head out, and hopefully Dominic will sense the apology in there and spend it on something to subside the trauma they’ve subjected him to.

He knows their bickering isn’t exactly _that_ bad, but then again, courtesy doesn’t hurt in a restaurant full of barely functioning species (including humans because let’s be honest here). The money can be used to buy some new shoes since a good third of the restaurant’s floor was smeared with a foreign pink substance oozing from porous alien skin. God he feels so bad. 

After maneuvering around _most_ of the mess with Lance’s guiding hand in his, they make it outside where he can freely swipe the soles of his own shoes along the pavement while Lance casually scrolls through his phone because he’d somehow managed to remain free of any residue. Fortunately, the clouds actually have swarmed in since their break inside and they filter the sunlight in great clusters, rather than the occasional popcorn puff that gives Keith a good two minutes of shade.

“Phone’s blowin’ up again…” Lance announces with a hand on his hip. Keith isn’t too concerned about crazed run-ins at the moment, the only people outside are a small family loading back into a minivan on the far side of the parking lot, and a lanky woman with bright pink hair smoking a cigarette. “I think someone got a picture of us in there.”

Keith exhales, disappointed but not surprised, as he ties his hair up again in a tighter hold. The ends still tickle at the base of his neck though. “Yeah, some kid in there was delighted by the fact that we’re apparently _sleeping together_.”

“Oof, sorry ‘bout that… A lot of people are saying I must be good in bed though while we’re on that subject. Care to share any testimonies, Keith?” Lance holds out his bitten toothpick like a microphone as his other hand clutches the phone.

Keith lowers his head, keeping a respectable amount of space between him and the saliva-damp toothpick. “You’re a crier.”

“Am not!” Lance squawks and snatches the pick away to throw it in a nearby trash bin. “Your insider privileges have been _revoked_ _._ ”

“Oh, _woe is me_ ,” Keith says, but he doesn’t have it in him to make a convincing show of sorrow, instead skipping right to blunt sarcasm and busying himself with unlocking the car. It takes four failed clicks with the remote, then defeatedly jamming the keys into the lock for the door to finally relent. And all the while, Lance is having a swell time just watching.

“They’re calling us sex gods, Keith,” Lance says once they’re settled inside the mouth of Satan filled with the same, if not worse, hot and blistering air from before. “You see, I don’t mind, but a lot of them are reading me wrong, ya know?”

Keith grunts, the red lion keychain jangling while he turns the keys in the ignition.

“Top, bottom, left, right,” —Keith’s not sure that last half is how it works— “I’m in it to win it, alright?”

Right, because Lance is familiar with the roles of gay sex (or at least mostly) because he’s _bisexual_. And Keith only figured that out after all these years when Lance had casually mentioned _“Yeah, me and him used to hook up”_ after waving at some red-headed officer while they passed by in the Garrison lounging area. Keith nearly toppled over nothing as they’d continued to walk on, and he could only squeak a _“Him?”_ before Lance grinned, pat his back, then said _“I don’t discriminate”_. From then on, Lance’s overly-friendly behavior with a few masculine looking aliens in the past have made a lot more sense, but it’s still quite apparent Lance has a preference for women. At least to Keith’s knowledge he does, unless there’s another 180 he’s gonna be swung through later on.

“They’re saying you’re a biter, doesn’t surprise me.”

He… kind of is, if his on-and-off sex life are anything to go by. The first phase was endured as a horny teenager doing god knows what in those months before getting expelled, and the second being now, back here on Earth with some one time flings under his belt, but luckily staying under the radar. 

They’re not all that great past the immediate bliss, and he’s suppressed that familiar mucky feeling afterward on enough occasions to be just shy of becoming a habit. Because wouldn’t it be nice for those hands to be a little more tan, or that waist a tad more narrow, or those shoulders more sharp or hair a lovely shade of dark brown or a pointed chin or curved nose or blue _blue_ eyes—

“Keith would like getting his hair pulled…” Lance reads aloud with a bland, absent tone.

“Wha— give that to me!” He snatches the phone from Lance, fortunately while they’re stopped at a red light, to scowl through this onslaught of invasive messages, or tweets in this case.

1:37 PM: _lol yk keith would like getting his hair pulled, like come on i would too_ • 2,032 retweets

“ _keithkoganesass, I post Keith’s ass everyd_ — are you _following_ this person?!” he shouts and scrolls through an endless feed of pictures of his behind in the recognizable Garrison uniform, his Voltron suit, his slacks for public conventions, all zoomed in pointedly close to his bottom.

_HIS CAKE 🎂🍑 WHOSE BIRTHDAY IS IT??_

_i wanna TOUCH IT_

_damn god said not for you, BUT FOR HIM_ 🥵🥵

“NO!” Lance yanks his phone back, the movement so sudden that his seat belt locks and the bounce back looks painful. Keith sends him a skeptical look while he cradles his phone close. Lance wavers. “Okay, _well_ —“

“That’s what I thought.” Keith turns back to the road ahead and drives onward, a conflicted mix of mischief and bewilderment taking over his head.

“Let’s be honest though…” He sees Lance picking at a stray thread on his basketball shorts. “They’re pretty good pictures.”

Another thing to be honest about is that Lance is probably the one person he’d allow to get away with this because it’s just the level of _weird_ he’d expect from the other. It’s half a joke at least, if not entirely, _the_ Lance McClain following a fan page for Keith’s ass, something that would swarm over half his notifications if they weren’t already off and he was actually active on social media. It’s just now that he realizes he’s rarely been on his phone this entire trip, only checking occasionally for the time, and a smug text from one of the crew every now and then of _“Looks like someone’s getting comfy… 😏”_ , to which he replies _“Isn’t he always like this?”_

_“No,”_ he reads the text pop up on his lock screen at another red light, since Pidge (among a short list of other people) is an exception for his general do not disturb settings. _“he’s into you,, like INTO YOU into you”_

Then Keith looks over at Lance, who’s hovering over his phone and seems to be poorly covering the fact that he’s still on that ass page, even opening the keyboard and typing out some reply. And it should be obvious, it _should_ be, that _“he must like me back”_ feeling but Lance is a person with certain tells and layers that go along with his trademark flirting, and just being one to indulge in the tactile “bromantic-ness” of a friendship seems a bit too far from the cutout.

Lance glances back his way, then his eyes flick down to Keith’s phone, with the lock screen alight in his lap, and goes “No texting and driving, _cheese-head_.”

Keith clears the notification and slips his phone back onto the console, over that cursed magazine because it looks like Lance caught onto its absence. He wonders what the press, better yet his _fans_ , would think of how he looks in reality as of this exact moment, sweaty and miserable from the heat, probably on the brink of another breakout along his jaw because nobody’s perfect. At least the heat is dry.

For the next hour and a half, he and Lance swing back and forth in dull conversation, but there’s something pleasant about Lance’s low and raspy voice that has Keith hanging onto the sound. It grows deeper with his exhaustion, as opposed to the more jumpy side when he’s just a ball of chipper energy. Both are quite enjoyable, but that’s just Keith’s infuriatingly biased mind.

Lance has also drawn the short straw with attire today. Because while Keith’s decked out in a pair of maroon Chubbies (obscure brand name) and a light v-neck, Lance has his black Boston shirt on that seems to just _beg_ for sunlight through the passenger window since he’s taken to vigorously tugging the fabric for some relief. Keith can’t help but find a little humor in the vibrant UFO across the front considering their life now, maybe the rock band knew what was coming. That’d be quite the conspiracy to get into…

“Gonna die any minute now,” Lance pants. “The fam is gonna have another reason to hang at the hospital.”

Keith takes one hand off the steering wheel to pinch the edge of the magazine and lift it just enough to clumsily fan at Lance’s profile. “Almost there,” he tries for reassurance but it probably sounds blunt anyway.

_“Turn right onto North La Cholla Boulevard. In half a mile, the destination is on your right.”_

Lance exhales in relief. “ _Gracias_ , Keith, you’re a saint,” he says, then wipes his eyes. Keith isn’t sure his crappy fanning is doing much help, but he’ll take the appreciation anyway.

“Let’s go see your niece.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can’t help his surprise because… because Maricela’s eyes are the _first_ thing he sees, and it’d probably be extremely difficult for his attention to land on anything else when they’re wide and full of blank wonder. He still only catches them for a second until one of the nurses has shifted over and his view is overtaken by light blue scrubs and not dark, dark brown eyes. In a comedic sense, it kind of reminds him of Bugsy from _Bedtime Stories,_ except if the guinea pig was a newborn child and his laughter at the sight was replaced with mild confusion. This is still fairly normal development, right? It’s cute and all, but…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a wild ride... :)  
> (translations for the brief spanish phrases are in end notes)

🧸❤️🧸

The door to room 302 clicks open quietly when they make their way inside, and already a flurry of voices reaches their ears even from the far side of the room. Keith isn’t quite a fan of the notorious hospital smell, which is stiff and feels almost _too_ clean instead of nice and welcoming. Then again, it’s a hospital and he should probably be more concerned about having the place sanitized and safe over nice and homey. The air is crisp and relatively fresh too, much to Lance’s delight since his soul had seemed to flutter from his body for a few seconds when they’d first stepped inside. Keith holds on to hope that their sweat cleanup with leftover napkins in the car's compartment, plus this air conditioning, will make him look decent enough for the occasion.

“ _Tío Lance!_ ” He soon hears, steadily following Lance in tow farther inside the room. It’s bathed in daylight that beams through the far window along with the overhead lights, which surprisingly don’t assault his eyes from overbearing fluorescence, unlike his unfortunate past visits to other hospitals. The walls are covered in a cream white, simply decorated with standard framed artwork of flowers and other variations of nature. Along the edges are pale blue, cushioned chairs, most of which are occupied by various McClains, some he recognizes vaguely and others not as much. But Rosa’s captivating character immediately draws his attention out of all of them from where she stands at the bedside, well, even though she’s currently scolding her grandson.

“Sylvio, _volume_ please— Ay hold on, oh! Look who’s here,” She says once her sight has fully turned to their entrance.

“Last in family order, last to arrive,” he hears Veronica teasingly comment.

“Ah, the other baby’s here huh?”

“Someone tax him for not getting here yesterday!”

“You guys are terrible,” Lance says with no bite as he ruffles Nadia and Sylvio’s hair while they hold fast to his hips in a mess of giggles. Nadia repeatedly bonks her head into where her height reaches just shy of the base of Lance’s thigh, her short hair swishes with the movement and it must be her own way of saying hello. Keith finds it quite endearing. And then—

“ _¡Ahh, llegó el novio!_ ” he hears a voice almost identical to Lance’s, just slightly deeper with a little more gravelly edge to it. He finds its owner sitting just next to the window, shaggy brown hair, crinkled eyes, and a lanky frame that sprawls the space in front of him with long, denim-clad legs. It’s Marco, and he remembers only from the slight resemblance in build to Lance.

_Another_ thing his recognition catches onto is that very term he’s addressed as, apparently a familial title for “boyfriend”, thanks to Veronica’s past sneaking translation at the last family gathering. He’s almost one hundred percent sure she’d only done it to watch his cheeks burn. Not that they did or anything… (They did).

The following moment, he predictably catches Veronica’s eyes and the mischievous glint they hold, but he tries to busy himself with the kids turning their attack to Keith now.

“Keeeith!” Sylvio shouts, disregarding Rosa’s earlier comment while he dashes on over to clutch onto Keith’s hip. Nadia follows to do the same, along with her little head bonks and no, he’s not gonna cry.

“Hey you two,” he says and lowers himself once they’ve loosened their hold that way he can hug them properly.

Sylvio instantly wraps his small arms around Keith’s neck, squeezing so tight he may as well be a little boa constrictor, and it gives him a brief flashback to Lance’s back-popping hug yesterday. And yesterday feels quite long ago, when all he’d wanted was Doritos and a nap, but instead he got an impromptu road trip to meet the new addition to the McClain family. But it’s better, ten times better (even though he really wanted those Doritos), because he feels loved like no other here. Where Nadia gives him a kiss to his cheek before heading on over to where Lance has seated himself on one of the last empty chairs, then climbs into his lap with a little more grace thanks to Lance’s helping lift.

“I missed you, Keith,” Sylvio says once he’s pulled away and taken to running his tiny fingers through Keith’s bangs. Again with the hair, there’s no time he hasn’t somehow gotten his hands on it, save for his first appearance in the med wing asking for “Uncle Leo”, and even then he’d hurriedly thrown out _“I like your long hair!”_ , then dashed off down the hall, leaving Keith’s door wide open. And he must _really_ be a fan of it since Keith was handling the after effects of a near death, with thick wrap around his head like a crown of misfortune.

“I missed you too, buddy,” He reciprocates, because that much is true. There’s nothing quite like this boy’s adorable little character, with slightly lighter brown hair than Lance’s and dark, rich brown eyes giving him a charming, doe-like appearance. They’re blown wide with affection and wonder while he continues carding through those front strands and ultimately loosening Keith’s ponytail, he doesn’t mind though. Sylvio could tug them off into awkward bald patches on his head, and he’d probably just think _it is what it is_.

“Did you bring your dog?” He asks predictably, even though Kosmo is technically a wolf, the dog part is a lot more appealing to kids. 

Keith sighs and shakes his head, the disappointment he conveys is pretty honest because it’s been a while since Kosmo has been around, considering his mother has taken him as a necessity for a mission. Supposedly, they should be returning soon, maybe in the next few days. It still makes his heart ache though. And according to Sylvio’s pout, he too feels a sense of longing. Maybe with less depth to it, but it’s there nonetheless.

“That’s okay because you’re here.” Sylvio twirls Keith’s hair with a smile and manages to turn Keith’s heart to goo.

“Ohohoo Lance you better watch out, he’s goin’ in for the taking!”

Lance sends Marco a suppressed smile, and it’s less genuine, more _“I’ll kill you”_ because Keith and several others have been on the receiving end before. Hell, he’s done the look himself.

Keith eventually stands up, with Sylvio latched on from behind like a backpack, and he heads on over to where Lisa lays comfortably on the bed. Well, as comfortable as can be after giving birth. She sends a warm smile his way. Her curly brown hair is sprawled across the pillow and her light arms rest over the blanket, where the rest of her body is tucked comfortably underneath. She has a certain motherly nature that’s unlike Rosa, where Rosa is mostly doting and handles her kids with a sassy attitude (they’ve clearly inherited), Lisa is more laid back and easygoing with a friendly sense of humor. He kind of sympathizes with her when they’ve been caught in the rowdiness of this family. She’s an in-law and Keith is, well, he’s still someone from the outside that’s somehow been wrangled in. It’s not all that bad, but she’s still the most understanding of his position, and her _“Looks like we’re break buddies”_ comment had sealed the bond. Basically, they both wound up in the empty kitchen while everyone else was fooling around in the living room after the first family dinner he attended.

“Hey Keith,” she says, and her voice is just as sweet as that smile. “Thanks for coming last minute. Also for handling that little monkey.” She nods to where Sylvio’s hooked his chin over Keith’s shoulder, and the boy giggles.

“It’s alright, I like him.” He’d pat the other’s head or something but his arms are occupied keeping him up at the moment.

“More than Lance?” Veronica asks smugly, but he takes it in stride.

“Oh definitely.”

“Wha— Alright, that’s a little too far!” Lance exclaims with one arm clutching Nadia and the other flung out to point at Keith. “I’m the best and you know it.”

“Nah, can’t hear you.” He doesn’t fight the twitch that lifts the corners of his mouth.

Lance knows better. Knows better considering their Waffle House talk, and last night’s _“You’re too good”_ if he remembers it at all. And even without this added context, he’s sure the rest of the family knows better, from the subtle _“So when’s the wedding?”_ comment by Luis (which he subtly avoids), to Rosa’s long awaited welcome where she brings Keith into her arms and hooks her own chin over the shoulder that Sylvio’s head isn’t hanging over.

“I always forget how tall you are,” she says after rubbing his arm and kissing his temple. 

It should be scary how immediate his eagerness to this affection is. When they initially returned to Earth, he and Lance were obviously on teetering terms. The specifics of it all make it quite strange, because in that position, Keith would spare all that he owned, including his life, to save Lance at any of their (sadly frequent), life-threatening moments. But the first act of basic friendliness and that usual platonic, physical affection he’d never experienced before had his throat clenching while his mind felt a wave of some sort of relief. It wasn’t until after four years of knowing Lance, (only two and a half spent together), that they finally had their first hug. The awkward, leaned-up-as-far-as-his-injuries-will-allow type hug in the hospital bed. He’d spent so long in the deep end of Lance’s personal character, he’d forgotten what it was like to swim in the shallows. Or technically, he didn’t forget. That fateful day of his teammate spurring the ancient cave to life with a peculiar blue glow had commenced a cannonball into this intimate connection. There were no friendly or slow beginnings, neither was Lance’s introduction, and from then on Keith figured moving backwards wasn’t all that bad in a context like this.

Keith chuckles, because honestly he’s not quite sure what to say to that. Luckily though, Rosa just carries on. “And Lance too! I lost my son forever and he comes back half a foot taller with more muscle! You were almost a pencil before, I’ll say.” She waves over to Lance, who looks unsure of whether to take this spiel as a compliment or not.

“Yeah they had the before and after photos on the news or something a while back, right?” Rachel asks from where she’s leaned near the window.

Keith remembers that. It felt like he was getting his mugshot taken at the time, and it would’ve felt more fitting in that sense, considering the various illegal things he ended up doing in space. No, he’s not part of the space mafia, but getting intentionally drunk a couple more times after the first accidental incident and stealing a cow speaks for itself. You’d think the two stunts go hand in hand... They don’t.

The pictures doubled as their new IDs for the Garrison, as well as side by sides for national news. When he’d first seen the comparison, it felt almost unreal. The toll time takes on a person is unnoticeable day by day, but with a significant gap between _then_ and _now_ , it’s like a smack to the face. If Lance’s strangely frequent comments about his new look were already proof enough, then half the world with their jaws dropped is a whole other thing. He shared a hint of that shock himself, noticing how drastically he’d grown a sharper, angled structure from his nose to his jaw and chin, even his shoulders seemed more carved and less sloped like before. The burn that formed across a slice of his skin had healed to pink, and it’s swelling eventually went down but the texture is still rough. That mark left behind was the most blatant giveaway of his time spent serving.

Lance doesn’t have any immediately visible scars, though the change was just as telling with him too. He aged in a more lean manner, with his cheekbones, jaw, and neck now slimmer and toned into more prominent features. If Keith believed he stood a chance against the idea of Lance being attractive when they were only young teenagers, then man was he in for something because it’s unavoidable now. Lance’s personality has little to speak for his young adult age, but looks? He’d rather yank out a tooth than throw an ego boost out like this, but a proper scruff on his friend is a look that’s got his heart jumping. Maybe he’ll sneak into the other’s room and throw out any razors, maybe not. Who knows…

“I almost didn’t recognize him at first,” Veronica pipes in, “But I know an idiot when I see one.”

“Okay now you can shut your quiznak with that—“

“I don’t know how that makes sense in your head, honestly.”

“Alright you two that’s enough,” Rosa says before placing a kiss on Lance's head once she’s finished her welcome with Keith. “We’re here for _one_ baby, I can’t have two more acting up like this.”

“That would be fair _except_ she’s not even here!” Lance exclaims and wildly waves over to Lisa, sans the infant they traveled over two hundred miles for. “What— did she, like, spontaneously grow up and walk out of here? Where’s my baby?”

Lisa’s brow lifts with a challenge but she’s clearly amused. “ _Your_ baby?”

Lance straightens, jutting his chin out while his natural theatrics start taking over. “I’d say so, I spent a lot of gas money on her already.”

Keith scoffs and Sylvio jostles from the movement. “No you didn’t.”

“ _We_ spent a lot of gas money on her already.” Also Lance’s polite way of referring to the _“I buy snacks, you pay gas”_ arrangement. Which ultimately worked out in Lance’s favor because Keith covered their breakfast after his _“I found a dollar”_ thing too. What an ass. He’d probably do it again in a heartbeat though.

Luis rolls his eyes from where he stands at his wife’s side. He’s similar to Hunk, in the way that his big build can sometimes be taken in an intimidating manner, but getting to know him personally proves otherwise. “I’m starting to think Keith should get a turn holding her first.”

And on a somewhat unrelated note, his voice reminds Keith of what Santa Claus may sound like. Well, if he existed… The world is a mystery, though, and his life has proved that in almost every way imaginable, so maybe it’s not entirely impossible to imagine flying reindeer riding in the sky rather than just plastered all over Lance’s Walmart pajama pants.

“Nuh-uh!” Lance’s lip quirks and he shakes his head with an attitude. “As much as I’d like to see Keith function around a baby, it’s already been made clear _I’m_ the favorite tío here—“

“Oh _please—“_

“—o way cause _I’m_ the one—“

“—be Keith since you both suck—“

The door clicks open.

“ _Hah!_ Point proven! She followed the sound of my voice,” Lance says proudly and Nadia nods with enthusiasm, her hair swishing all over the place again while she rocks from side to side on Lance’s knee.

A couple nurses move into the room, carefully rolling a cart inside with the small, standard bed at the top keeping the baby comfortably cushioned. Keith sees a glimpse of dark hair and the recognizable yellow blanket like the one in the picture. 

“She has really big eyes,” Sylvio murmurs right next to Keith’s ear. It startles him a little, and he glances over to where Sylvio’s gaze has hooked onto the cart with rapt attention, following the nurses line of path and the sound of those squeaky wheels.

“Well a lot of babies have big eyes, right?” He’s only ever _met_ a couple every now and then in foster care, or visiting his dad’s coworkers when he was younger, but it’s still fairly normal.

Sylvio shakes his head though, which is already quite curious. “No,” he says, still hypnotized by the cart. “They’re, like, _actually_ big.”

“Alright well I guess we’ll just have to s— _whoooa_ okay those are some eyes right there…”

He can’t help his surprise because… because Maricela’s eyes are the _first_ thing he sees, and it’d probably be extremely difficult for his attention to land on anything else when they’re wide and full of blank wonder. He still only catches them for a second until one of the nurses has shifted over and his view is overtaken by light blue scrubs and not dark, dark brown eyes. In a comedic sense, it kind of reminds him of Bugsy from _Bedtime Stories_ , except if the guinea pig was a newborn child and his laughter at the sight was replaced with mild confusion. This is still fairly normal development, right? It’s cute and all, but… 

“I wanna go see her,” Sylvio says and loosens his grip on Keith to slide down gracefully until his small feet touch the ground. Keith has barely any time to register it, but oh well. 

The one nurse who had lingered behind while Lisa is being handed her baby catches Keith from the corner of her eye. Her body jolts as a following reaction with poorly hidden surprise, and her curly blonde hair bounces from the movement. Keith is used to it though, this kind of reaction face to face in the more mundane parts of life. But what he _isn’t_ used to is—

“Uh—“ the nurse stutters before regaining composure. “Mister Kogane, it’s nice to see you here.” She smiles with tight glossy lips. Keith returns the favor and keeps his arms tightly crossed in front of him while she continues. “I’m— Well I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to take a few steps back since you’re present.” _Huh?_ “We have some news regarding the child and it… it's a necessary precaution we have to take.”

_Necessary precaution?_ He looks over to the other nurse, who also looks quite apprehensive even without noticing Keith among the McClain cluster. He doesn’t exactly have a choice to step away himself since the blonde haired one is moving now, edging him closer to the wall until they’re at a reasonable distance for whatever this “news” may be. Is it just because he’s not family? Does he need to sign something? _Is it because he’s—_

“Lisa,” the nurse at her bedside says as calmly as her composure allows. “We have some unexpected news regarding your child.” Her hands twine together and her thumbs twiddle anxiously.

“Oh?” Lisa questions with furrowed brows. Lance has moved to the recliner in preparation to hold Maricela, but his eagerness is replaced with matching confusion as his sister in law. Lisa tucks her baby closer in an immediate motherly reflex. “I hope it’s nothing bad?”

“Not quite, no.” The nurse takes a breath. “If you’re comfortable with me sharing here…”

“No yeah, go on.” Lisa nods because now they’re _all_ hooked, and Rosa has one hand on her shoulder as Luis holds onto the other. Keith knows they’re trying to be comforting, but their anxiousness still leaks through in worried eyes.

Marco adjusts himself from where he sits at the far end of the room, popping his neck while he does so before doing a double take at Keith. His face pinches with confusion under those shaggy curtains of hair, and he nods back, silently asking _“What’s up with that?”_ since it’s been made quite obvious Keith isn’t allowed any closer. Keith frowns and shrugs his shoulders, _I don’t know_.

“Since Voltron’s arrival on Earth, along with the many species that came with it, the medical field has been able to create more procedures with the newly improved technology and what not,” she begins with a practiced voice.

“Some of these procedures include far more accurate diagnostics for diseases, potential psychological delays as well as patterns in physical development. I recall you had signed the forms for us to perform these tests, which I reassure you are not harmful at all.”

Lisa nods hurriedly. “Yeah, yeah I did.”

The nurse shifts from one foot to another, but her eyes remain on Lisa. “Another one of the tests meant we could find potential matches with various foreign genetics since we have new inhabitants on Earth now.”

“So you’re saying…” Lisa trails.

Suddenly, Lance snorts and it rips through the tense air like crumpling paper in a quiet classroom. All eyes turn to him. “What, is she an alien or something?”

And the nurse goes still, then the other in front of Keith, and everyone else goes still, and the room goes still and all that moves is shadows from one of the flickering lights, Maricela’s tiny clenched fists twisting this way and that from just outside the edge of her yellow blanket, and Nadia’s head bonking that she’s taken to Rosa’s hip now.

The nurse takes another deep breath and takes out her clipboard, which Keith just realized was tucked under her arm in a fierce hold before. Her knuckles go white when they clutch the edges as the rest of her hands turn a shade of pink, not unlike her flushed neck that had once been pale as a paper. Her tongue pokes out from between her lips and the path of her eyes quivers across the page like a leaf in the wind. She’s double checking, triple checking, quadruple— from a shaky line of left to right before finally tucking the clipboard close to her chest and looking back at Lisa.

“Your child tested positive for Puigian genetics. And… well-“ —Her lips wobble with that last intake of air— “- _you_.”

  
  


Keith feels his chest tighten, and suddenly he’s nineteen again having to make the same confession by himself to a room full of the only people he considered close to a family. Suddenly he has to face Allura’s coldness and rejection for a history he had no control over. He couldn’t just select his avatar for this game of _life_ because this is reality, and having the ground snatched from underneath his feet like a haywire magic carpet is nothing he’s not used to. He’s well aware of the years it took to accept this, and the even longer time it took for other people to follow.

The blonde haired nurse remains planted in front of him, and that’s how he knows the last part, the _other people_ part, isn’t quite finished.

“Hah!” Lisa laughs, but it’s more like a strangled shout that yanks everyone out of their stupor. “Heh… heh… you’re joking with me,” she says but her brows curl into a peak of worry and her entire face just _begs_ for this not to be true. It _can’t_ be, Keith understands.

“I’m afraid n—“

“No no _nonono_ ,” Lisa interrupts, speaking through a wavering smile. “I’m a _Latina_.” She bows her head and keeps her eyes locked onto the nurse like she’s trying to convince her of her heritage. “I’m not a peh— pie— there’s no alien in me and Maricela isn’t either!”

“Yeah, what’s all this alien gibberish about?” Rosa says with concern and a skeptical tone.

Keith sees Sylvio creeping closer to the bedside, next to where Nadia stands, and he peers up with a thick air of innocence hovering over him and his oblivious sister. “So does that mean we’re aliens too?”

“No _mijo_ , we’re normal. We’re just fine,” Lisa tells her son with a reassuring tone.

_Just fine_. Keith’s heart slides into his stomach like a weight swinging down a loopy water slide of sadness and sinking into a pool of shame. Because he wishes he was _just fine_ and _normal_ right now and wasn’t always associated with the worst of the worst. It’s crazy how fast those constant layers of reassurance to himself are stripped bare in the light of people he cares about. But he gets it, which sucks, maybe it’d be easier to resent everyone else than just himself right now.

Honestly, the nurse shouldn’t have to stand guard in front of him. Whatever species Maricela is, he doesn’t expect being allowed near her with this kind of treatment. He clutches the sleeves of his shirt and slinks back even further near the wall, and that half open door on the other side of the room is looking really inviting right about now.

Lance finally catches sight of him from where he’s moved to the edge of his seat, utterly invested in all of this just like the rest of the family, but now his attentive gaze shrinks into something else. Something that tugs down on the corners of his mouth and pinches his face, almost like confusion, the same way Marco’s did moments before, who’s also glanced back over in his direction now.

Marco goes to say something, whether to just Keith or the nurse or everyone in general, he’s not quite sure because Lance is quick to take over.

“Hey, hey— what’s this?” He waves over Keith’s… _situation_ while he stands up from his seat. “Why do you have him all crowded up over here? What are you, a weirdo or something?” He maneuvers around the bed, each step growing heavier and angry by the second but Keith isn’t ready for that.

The nurse steps over, blocking the way even more obviously than before and weakly lifting her hand to make a point. “We’re just trying to—“

“Just trying to what? Exclude part of the family?”

Keith gulps and lowers his arms. The _door_ , he wants to get to the _door_ right now. “Lance, c’mon…”

“ _Nononono_ ,” He says insistently. “We took off at midnight for this and drove, like, four hundred miles to get our asses over here so if you could please just—“ he makes to take Keith’s hand, or at least it seems like it, but the nurse turns again.

Oh, if looks could kill…

The nurse shrinks away from Lance’s fiery gaze.

Lance takes Keith’s hand in both of his and holds it firm between them. But he’s already causing a scene and after taking a look over the other’s shoulder, Lisa is looking real guilty over there. It seems pretty unfair, finding out you’re alien only provokes all kinds of disbelief and bewilderment so he can’t put her at fault for being… normal. “Lance, it’s fine,” he tries to say at the lowest volume he can muster so it remains in the space between them. He’s sure the kids are getting restless and the family wants answers, he even hears some talking from outside this bubble that’s formed but none of it registers. “I get it, it’s probably just a… a safety thing.” He keeps his gaze low to the scuffed tile floor because this isn’t something to indulge in.

“ _You’re_ not dangerous.” Lance nudges closer. “Hey, look at me. C’mon, Keith.”

Keith feels his cheeks redden from embarrassment because— “I don’t think I should be here right now.” Come on, that fucking _door_ , can’t they just leave? He’s not about to cry like some kid that got kicked off the playground or excluded from a birthday party. This is a family occasion and he feels a bit selfish for not just waiting outside the room. This whole thing could’ve just been avoided. “Can I just step outside or something?” He mutters because his chest is tightening and he can almost feel the family looking their way even among the passive noise, even with his eyes still on the floor.

“I’ll go with you then,” Lance insists. It’s the best Keith can get so he takes it with a small nod.

Lance stays holding onto Keith’s hand while they make their way out of the room with guilty stares following them to the door. Lance throws out something in Spanish, probably along the lines of _“We’ll be a minute.”_

They linger along the outskirts of the wide hallway. Other staff members make their way to and fro, leaving nothing but a brush of wind in their wake while they pay little attention to two paladins of Voltron present in their hospital. It gives Keith room to breath and momentarily forget the mess they’d left behind, but there’s no doubt he’s just as confused as the others.

“You want me to just…” Lance steps away just a little to give Keith an opportunity of space. Like inviting him to close a figurative door and separate them entirely, rather than a generous gap with only their hands linked together.

Keith doesn’t want that, he wants anything _but_ that right now. He wants only Lance and not everything else around them. He wants to swim out of that pool of shame and reach the shore, to feel nothing but air on his shoulders and not the weight of dense emotion. He should be doing the countdown exercise, you know, 5-4-3-2-1 senses, but having Lance is tempting enough and he snakes himself into an embrace instead. He likes the pressure, it makes him feel present and grounded and cared for. From the way Lance holds back just as firm to the natural scent that sticks to his skin. It should be gross because— _“You’re sweaty,”_ Lance mumbles into his shoulder and Keith chuckles because he is, they both are, he just doesn’t care.

“You know we love you,” Lance says with a rub to Keith’s lower back. “And what Lisa said was shitty, but she probably didn’t mean it like that… We see you as Keith. Just our Keith, yeah?” Lance checks to see if Keith is responsive because at this point, he’s well aware of how to manage anxiety attacks, even the small ones.

Keith nods, but he keeps his nose in the crook of Lance’s neck and his eyes shut to the rest of the world and they rock slightly from side to side.

“Your meds are in the car, right?” Keith nods again, he has an alarm to take them around evening time everyday. Lance hums. “Good… You know my psychiatrist might prescribe me the same ones? We’ll be like dysfunctional twinsies,” He says in a way too optimistic tone.

Keith can’t help that laugh that he chokes out because of course his friend is going to remain this ridiculous even in situations like this. “I can’t believe you.”

“I can’t believe _this_ ,” Lance says. His body deflates a little, like the air has been squeezed out of him before sucking it back in. “My sister-in-law being part alien? My _niece and nephew_ being part alien? Do you think that’s why they can be little weirdos sometimes or is that a kid thing?”

Keith pulls back just to level the other with a deadpan, he keeps his arms hooked over Lance’s shoulders though, and their closeness contradicts his unamused bite of: “It’s a _McClain_ thing, if you’re anything to go by.”

“You calling me a weirdo?” Lance’s nose crinkles.

_Yes_ , yes he’s calling Lance a weirdo. He follows a thirst account for Keith’s ass and drinks alien Benadryl at sketchy motels and wears Christmas attire in May and squeezes his feet into barely-fitting shoes just because _“I still love them, alright?”_ , then runs Keith’s energy dry after just one Waffle House visit, yet they’re still here. And Keith _still_ likes him.

Keith blinks. “Maybe so.”

“Don’t do me like that,-“ —Lance bumps their foreheads together— “-you open chip bags from the bottom.”

“There’s more flavor there.”

“Then shake it!” Lance exclaims while he holds fast to Keith’s hips.

“Maybe I don’t want to!” He returns the effort and jostles Lance’s shoulders.

Lance barely has time to open his mouth and choke out _“That’s so—“_ before there’s a * _click_ * at their side and the door has crept open again.

A sliver of floral fabric peeks through the crevice before the space widens. Rosa shuffles outside on diligent feet with her head carefully bowed and movements smooth until she’s out of the room entirely. Keith isn’t sure what the effort is for, considering everyone was already being loud to begin with, but the woman holds true to her manners anyway.

He and Lance loosen their holds on one another until their arms finally go slack and the space between them is a little more apparent for the sake of courtesy. Of course, there’s nothing to actually conceal because they’re _friends_ , but it is pretty awkward having his mom walk in on a… dare he say: _moment_. Wonder if Lance would forget this one too… Ah, the wonders of being petty.

“ _Mis hijos_ ,” Rosa says once the door shuts again and she can hold onto their shoulders, draped in a humble air of concern. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” She looks over to Keith and he already feels the instinct to cower with guilt because it’s not _his_ day, but she continues on without too long a pause. “Lisa feels really bad, but we had to stay back and listen to what the nurses had to say because this is crazier than even _we_ are used to.”

_I bet_ , Keith thinks. But Lance jumps ahead from that. “Well, what did the nurses say?” He challenges and hooks the heels of his hands on his hips.

“They’re serious. Your sister-in-law is somehow part alien, Lance.” Rosa pays no mind to his attitude while she’s still caught up in her own surprise.

“But _how?_ How did we not know this before?”

Well, Keith didn’t know before either when it comes to his own heritage, so it’s pretty possible. He wouldn’t have known had he remained planted in the middle of the desert, wallowing in his shack with no clue as to what the rest of the universe held. He wouldn’t have had that hint if there wasn’t an opportunity for him to handle foreign technology in space. All of the codes unlocked and _“access granted”_ just by a handprint was enough to know at least _something_ was up. But where he had to earn the right to own his mother’s blade through the exerting, close range combat that ultimately led to finding out he at least wasn’t _entirely_ human, Lisa just had to take some alien _23andMe_ DNA test to skip all the bullshit.

“I _don’t know_ , they just said the Puh— Poo— Pei… _Whatever_. They have the highest number of descendents on Earth because they also came in a ship at the same time as Keith’s mother.”

_UFO 23_ , he recalls, is the ship his mom had landed on Earth in. Obviously it had remained unidentified until he and the other paladins returned, along with centuries worth of information their own planet was unknowing of until the robeast had finally infiltrated the atmosphere. Its title is loosely named after him, according to the _23rd_ of his birthday, but it’s true name is a series of Galra coding. So a shortcut is understandable.

But what Rosa must be referring to is the UFO of ‘11 ( _damn, how creative, he’s aware_ ), in which another unidentifiable object had touched earth ground (in Brazil this time), but was undetectable to satellites and any tracking devices of the like after its initial sighting. Just a couple months ago, if he’s correct, the _‘11_ had apparently carried 50-70 Puigian refugees who somehow remained under the radar until the overwhelming wave of test results had begun piecing things together for historians just recently. So it seems Lisa’s breakthrough has both decent _and_ unfortunate timing.

“It’s the ‘11,” Keith voices his vague knowledge of the subject. His mother had explained its history to him during their time in the quantum abyss. Apparently the rebel forces had successfully saved the refugees, who had once been prisoners to the Galra, only a year after her own impromptu arrival on Earth. “Refugees were transported in 2011 when the rebels were forced away from where they were originally headed. Humans only thought they were some fictional creatures, I guess. And made, uh, YouTube conspiracy videos on them…”

“Which I’m sure you watched, huh?” Lance grabs onto Keith’s opposite shoulder and gives him a too-cheery side hug, or yank more like.

But Keith only crosses his arms and ignores the jab, favoring casual curiosity because he knows it’ll hit differently when Rosa is here. “Aren’t. those… the kind you _flirted_ with, Lance?”

Lance is immediately stupefied by that. The shake to Keith’s shoulders halts and his jaw unhinges, eyes traveling to any and every negative space between the three of them before jumping from Keith’s tilted head to Rosa’s brows raised with interest. “Uhhh,” he drags throughout the whole thing, then pats Keith awkwardly on the chest with his other hand — _thump, thump_ —, and finally finishes with just _outstanding_ sophistication: “Mama, honestly, that shirt looks great on you. Like, the flowers just really bring out your eyes..?”

Rosa isn’t taking it, but in the meantime her shoulders slump tiredly and she sighs. Keith wonders what Lance was like as a kid, or even a preteen during his _“godawful braces phase, I refuse to recall that time in my life”_. Did he always cock his hip and throw out the cheesy finger guns? Did he soldier through getting picked on for his below average height and relied on all the classic charm instead? Was he the Lance that Keith learned to tolerate with time, or is there a little more to it?

Hunk told him that during their earliest years at the Garrison, Lance’s class-clown attitude drew in the attention, and the height thing had taken center for most of the snarks he’d get back from people who just couldn’t stand it. So once he shot up a good half-foot overtime, there was little to nothing that stopped Lance from making a fool of himself with no repercussions to his ego. He was tall, charming, and handsome now with nothing to lose when there were plenty of suckers around for all that. He’s got so many fans now, _too_ many, oh god Keith rarely hears the end of it. Lance’s last words will probably have something to do with his twitter following.

And even though Keith noticeably bulked up during his two year mission and ended up surpassing Lance in their ongoing height race, his friend still dwells in an abyss of denial over it. Usually the only reason he pulls Keith’s head on his shoulder is to conceal the difference, (it’s barely noticeable). Pidge mentioned the extra couple inches during breakfast one time, and Lance immediately swung his hand up to Keith’s cheek and dragged him down to cradle his head at chest level. _“There’s no such thing,”_ he dismissed and scooped a small helping of applesauce onto a spoon. _“Now eat your food, little baby”_. Keith just took it without resistance. Shiro and Adam were having the time of their lives down the table soaking up the early morning show.

“We’ll get back to that later,” Rosa says, then glances over at the closed door. “Keith, you’re welcome to come back in. I came out here to tell you both that this doesn’t have to do with believing all the Galra are bad people. There is just a difference in the… genetics or something, and they want Maricela and you to stay safe.”

“But how?” Lance quickly defends, and his hand remains holding fast to Keith’s shoulder. “We’ve encountered Puigians before and there weren't any difficulties on Keith’s behalf, so how is this suddenly a thing?”

“They don’t know that, Lance,” Keith says because it’s that obvious. These are medical professionals, whereas federal workers are the most thoroughly knowing of Voltron’s service. “And I was wearing the team suit, it has a lot of settings so we just… don’t know.”

Lance looks at him with the same searching gaze he’s been wearing this entire trip. His lips turn in a small pout, the kind that appears when he doesn’t quite believe something, or he just doesn’t want to. It’s a moment in which Keith really understands how close they’ve become, because he’d travel for hours to see his baby niece, but the second Keith seems unwelcomed then the occasion is dropped in a heartbeat. When Lance looks at him, he’s really saying _“I want you to be okay.”_ , and he is. Keith is okay and funnily enough, Lance takes more time to forgive the things that aren’t particularly sent his way.

Keith uncrosses his arms and lifts his hand to hold onto Lance’s. “Come on, let’s go back in.”

He sees Rosa smile from the corner of his eye, and Lance finally sighs in defeat. His mother takes it as a go ahead and turns back to the door. “Fine,” Lance says with a little distaste while he follows Keith in tow. “But I’m still mad.”

“I know, bud.” _Bud?_ Lance is rubbing off on him, but something is missing. Honestly Keith feels like he should be calling him something else. He decides not to dwell on it.

The room falls quiet again, this time a bit more comfortably while the two nurses linger near the far wall and Lisa stays with Maricela huddled in her protecting arms. Sylvio is curled up at her side, reverently stroking his baby sister’s tufts of soft, feathery hair while Nadia sits in Marco’s lap, tapping away on the latter’s phone for a game that blasts bizarre sound effects. Veronica and Rachel’s conversation dies off, and Luis is biting his nails nervously.

“Mister Ko—“

“Keith,” Lisa says in a breath of relief before the nurses can jump onto whatever informational lecture was in store. “I- I’m sorry if I offended you.” Her voice is still sweet as ever, but the slight glumness to it hits Keith’s heart, and it’s as upsetting as a drooping flower deprived of sunlight. “I just didn’t want to scare my kids and I just— I wasn’t really thinking.”

Keith feels Lance’s hand clutch his tighter from behind his back. He musters up his best forgiving smile, hoping it surpasses any of his mistakenly aloof tendencies, and sends Lisa a small nod. “None taken. I felt it was a family moment so I’d rather not intrude.” He brushes his thumb along Lance’s hand.

“What? You’re not intruding!”

“ _Psshh_ ”

“You’re more family to us than Lance is,” Veronica waves off, then glances at the space just above Keith’s shoulder where Lance must be scowling, and adds “ _Alright_ , I’m joking. Still though, you have us.”

_“We love you,”_ he recalls Lance saying to him in the hallway. And it’s one thing to hear Lance say it, which is already more than enough for his connection-starved heart, but a whole other for the rest of the family to hop on. He feels his chest warm from their loud protests that render the nurses somewhat shaken in their little corner. Though, it’s probably appropriate to get their advice going.

“Uhh…” He laughs with a sheepish smile. “I really appreciate that. It’s good to know I have people who care for me- and I do too! Care for you guys, of course.” Lisa chuckles and his free hand scratches his neck nervously. “But that’s also why I wanna hear what’s the concern between me and Maricela.”

The blonde nurse takes that as her cue and steps forward, and the stray ringlets of hair from her bun bounce from even the slight movement. She seems like Ms. Frizzle’s anxious little sister, if the character’s classic outlandish outfits were changed to colorful cartoon pins lined along both sides of her lanyard.

“Our concerns didn’t have anything to do with the stigma behind the Galra race,” she begins, a mirror of what Rosa had mentioned before. “I apologize for behaving according to that, though.” She wrings her hands and glances over at Keith, who gives her an understanding nod. “The Puigians were one of the many races affected by Galra rule, supposedly dating back centuries ago.

The natives are known for their considerably large eyes, especially for females” —she nods to where Lisa holds Maricela because they all know at least _that_ — “as well as facial markings and small horns at the front of the cranium.” She touches her own head to show the two spots, around her hairline directly above both of her eyes. Sylvio watches in awe, mindlessly lifting his own small hand from where it was once on his sister’s to rub the same spots on his head, though of course he finds nothing there. It’s still painfully cute, and Keith feels his mouth quirk at the sight.

“We’ve found that any offspring between a native and a human will almost always _not_ inherit these traits. And the ones that do are only of the eyes and various shades of brown skin. This explains your passively human appearance, Lisa.” Lisa only breathes deeply and continues to listen, soaking up the information like the rest of them, who wear matching faces of focus.

“Had you been male, your children would likely be completely unsuspecting of alien genetics. But that’s not the case. Still, I mean, it seems you’re all pulling it off,” the nurse tries for a bit of humor. It _is_ true, Lisa and the kids make those eyes look like something to be jealous of, and although they may seem comparably big, (especially at birth, he guesses), they don’t look like wide-eyed bobbleheads or anything. He suspects it’s the kind of look people use makeup for to have their own eyes stand out.

Luis unclenches his teeth around his gnawed fingertips to ask: “But what’s this gotta do with the Galra?”

“Oh, right!” The nurse snaps her fingers. “The Galra have developed a natural biological reflex to Puigian scent, along with their overall energy. It provokes their more…” —she waves her hand in thought— “ _predatory_ features, but it’s only harmful if they have true hostile intentions. It’s like, hm…” The hand moves to her square chin, and a pink polished nail taps against its curve. “Like holding a weapon, but only actually using it if you already planned to.”

Lance shuffles over beside Keith with their hands still faithfully held together. He doesn’t pay any mind to it, maybe forgot they’re even connected because his attention is on the situation at hand instead. “So he just turns more Galra if he’s around Maricela,” he says in a statement, waiting for confirmation.

“Basically. And before anyone asks, the reason Lisa and the other children haven’t provoked this reaction is because the Puigians are a highly adaptive species. So from even a few years on Earth, the energy has faded almost entirely, but at birth it’s still prominent.”

Keith knows what it’s like to grow up unknowingly alien. The Galra and Puigians are obviously two very different species, but there’s still distinct tells for both at such a young age. Maricela’s eyes are startling enough, as cute as they are, and Keith knows his own proneness to inhuman reactions had undoubtedly scared Shiro shitless during that mentorship. Suddenly all the glimpses of his freakishly glowy eyes had a more understandable reason behind them other than it being “a catch of the light”. It had been their safest explanation at time, even considering that no kind of light makes someone’s pupils shift to almost _feline_. The only rule in their residence was _don’t piss off Cat-boy_ , and unfortunately, that refers to him.

He expects that to be one of the reflexes from interacting with Maricela. The others being his sharpened and somewhat elongated canines, then a barely-there tinge of almost _lilac_ that steadily tints his skin tone. It’s as far as his body has turned according to past experience, and also especially rare given the once in a blue moon, extreme circumstances of his otherwise mediocre missions nowadays. He personally knows it’s nothing to worry about, but this is less up to him and more up to Lisa’s willingness.

“Well what _happens_ when you turn more Galra?” Lisa asks a bit worriedly.

“ _Tsch._ ” Lance shrugs his shoulders dismissively. “Nothing to worry about, he just turns into a cat.”

Keith feels his neck pop from turning his head so fast. “ _Hey—_ “

Sylvio immediately perks up, or more accurately _launches_ off the pillows he was once laying against before darting across the bed. Lisa gasps from the sudden movement and rushes to support Maricela’s head while her son practically vibrates with excitement. “Keith turns into a _cat?!_ ”

“He’s a _what_ now?!”

“Really?”

“Oh you’re so full of sh—“

“ _Language!_ ”

Keith unlinks his hand from Lance’s to drag it down his face. “Eurghh, I’m _not_ a cat. Lance is just being” — _language_ , he thinks to himself— “a moron.”

It’s mostly the right thing to say, seeing as everyone unwinds their collectively intense surprise and returns back to a more manageable curiosity. But Sylvio deflates like a disheartened balloon animal, and his shoulders drag down with the faltering weight of his once-eager smile. His thin brows lower back from where they’d one shot up to his unruly hair that splays across his forehead, which looks the same way Lance’s does when he’s not actively obsessing over it. He’s the image of disappointment, and Keith almost wants to just give in and play cat for this kid, even though under any other circumstances he’d rather bite his own hand off.

He takes a breath and turns his focus back onto Lisa, who’s still recovering from Sylvio’s little outburst that shook the bed. “The only features of my… _transition_ are my eyes changing in dilation, and shape, I guess.” He swallows. “Then my teeth turn, uh, pointy.”

“Oh,” Lisa says simply. “That’s it?”

Lance elbows him _—“Hey!”—_ then adds on: “He turns a lil purple too” with a wink sent Sylvio’s way. Lance seems way too proud of this, and it looks like he’ll be having more part alien family to show off later on. Keith doesn’t quite get the appeal, but then again he’s lived it firsthand so there’s been significantly more time to get used to this.

“A _little_ ,” Keith emphasizes, because he doesn’t want Sylvio getting upset if Keith holds Maricela and ends up looking more sickly than some vibrant color the boy must be imagining.

Funnily enough, Nadia doesn’t care at all since she hasn’t been fully engrossed in the conversation since the moment Keith stepped back in with Lance and Rosa. Her small fingers are still tapping away at Marco’s phone screen, little _boing!_ s and _splat!_ s and _bonk!_ s still erupting in small bursts from the speakers at low volume. While her brother rides the rollercoaster of breakthrough after breakthrough with the rest of the family, she stays absorbed in whatever zany game sucks up her attention. Keith wishes he could somehow tune this out too, but unfortunately, he’s the center of it.

“Huh, alright I mean then it seems fine for Keith to hold Maricela, right?” Lisa asks the pair of nurses.

They look at one another, both faces frozen with consideration for a split second before Reject-Ms. Frizzle’s partner turns back to her and nods. “I believe it should be safe, but we’ll have to stay here just in case.” She gestures between both of them.

“Well let’s get a move on things, I wanna see this!” Marco exclaims and pumps his fist in the air. Nadia wobbles in his lap, but her eyes remain superglued to her screen.

Rachel huffs while she walks over to sit at the end of the bed where Sylvio is knelt patiently, or as patiently as a seven year-old can be. “This isn’t a _show_ , Marco, don’t be rude.”

Lance nudges Keith and they lock eyes. He nods toward the recliner next to the bed, the designated holding “spot” that’s void of any McClains at the moment, and no one seems to be making a move for it. “Come on.” He places a hand on Keith’s back and gently pushes him forward. “I can hold off… for now.”

“But- but you’re her _uncle_ , Lance. I shouldn’t be—“

“What, it’s not like the order will change the course of the universe,” Lance says flippantly, and Keith doesn’t believe he has the time to say that according to the butterfly effect, it kind of _will_. So he only sighs with defeat, knowing that although Lance hasn’t blown this out of proportion now, Keith will probably be forever in debt for experiencing something like this first because it’s just the type of dramatic person Lance is.

He slowly lowers himself onto the recliner, which is thankfully folded upright, then looks over to the bed and _whoa okay, looks like they’re doing this_ because Luis is already carrying his daughter Keith’s way.

“Support her head right here.” Rosa takes his forearm and tucks it closer to his body from where it once rested beside him, bending his arm at the elbow before patting the crook it forms. She elevates it with another small nudge from her nimble fingers, and Keith keeps the hovering position for a few awkward seconds before Maricela is being lowered into his hold.

He feels the blanket first. It’s weight as light as its pale color as the fabric brushes across his bare skin for a fleeting moment before something heavier takes its place. Something _human_ , or, well, _alien_ too.

Admittedly, he’s terrified because _what if_. What if he goes feral? What if he turns into some monstrous creature and traumatizes everyone? What if he’s never allowed near a McClain again? What if he drops her? _Oh my god what if he drops her—_

His eyes shut tight as if to stave off a fierce wave of dust and not just the innocent sight of a literal baby. He feels his skin prickle, his arm hairs rise and goosebumps wash down to his curled fingertips while something stirs in his chest. It’s likely his hammering heart, but it feels like a chest of heavy artifacts has been knocked off balance three different ways before finally settling. There’s another shift, this time pushing uncomfortably at his gums before adjusting, _widening_ to accommodate for the renewed length and sharpness of that certain set of alien teeth.

He’s Galra now. Actually, he’s always been Galra, but it’s _exposed_ now. And hopefully Sylvio and everyone else isn’t too unsettled by the lack of _zest_ and _pizzazz_ of it all, because he probably doesn’t look like the kind of mascot a kid-friendly cereal box would proudly showcase.

With bated breath, he lets his surroundings leak back into awareness, stacking each factor little by little. From the yellow blanket, to the similar lightness of his skin, to each set of shoes that line the bottom of his sight, before braving his anxiety and looking down at Maricela herself.

She’s soft. He only really feels the blanket and the fuzzy hair on her small head, but she looks _soft_ , just like any other baby, and her plush, rosy cheeks lift the bottoms of her wide and hypnotizing eyes. Her tiny mouth is open slightly, with lips that wobble continuously just to leave whatever baby thoughts she has unspoken. Because she’s a baby. And babies can’t talk. Right.

The string of tension holding the room together pulls taught when he glances up. He immediately locks eyes with Lisa, who doesn’t watch, but _searches_ past any potential layers of instability and into his honest core. There’s trust there, and he doesn’t falter, doesn’t _want_ to, because there’s something encouraging and downright intimidating about having a mother put her faith in you.

When her mouth quirks, Keith feels the same delight as he would from any moment of convenience, from encountering green traffic lights to laying on the cool side of his pillow, and a chorus of giggles dances from Sylvio’s mouth before it dissolves everyone’s nerves like fresh cotton candy. They aren’t afraid, no one is hurt, and he’s proudly holding Maricela _freakin’_ McClain right now after testing his luck several times on the trip here.

He can’t help the onrush of joy that flares from his chest and lifts a toothy smile onto his face, and it ultimately wrings the rest of their small crowd into easy chuckles and gentle coos while the nurses hover just beyond their bubble.

“He’s purple!” Nadia squeals and wags a tiny finger only a few inches from his face. Looks like she finally set the game aside.

_Shhick!_

Keith turns to the sudden sound of a camera shutter and catches Lance clutching at his phone with his shoulders bunched and long neck lowered to get just the right angle. He puffs out a frustrated breath to air away the shaggy strands of hair that bar his sight, and Keith finds it too endearing not to melt at. His smile softens, and that stupidly sweet fondness he holds is surely dripping off all his soft edges and right into the danger zone of deep, deep feelings.

That pair of blue eyes behind the phone peek up directly at Keith, and Lance’s grip falters for a moment before clumsily grappling his device back to security.

Keith lifts a brow. Lance flips him off, and he gets away with it this time.

“Alright, alright. I think we all know what we’ve _really_ been waiting for here.” Lance pockets his phone and spreads his arms in a grand gesture.

Veronica’s face scrunches weirdly while she looks her brother up and down. “No, I don’t think we do—“

“Ah! That’s _right!_ It’s Lancey-Lance’s turn here.” Lance steps over to where Keith is seated, getting so close that their legs knock together and his figure casts a looming shadow over Keith like some wild anime villain and not just a petty uncle vying for time to hold his niece. He flares out his hand, palm up. “Now hand over the baby.” Right, let Keith just plop Maricela down into Lance’s hand like an apple or something.

“ _Ay yai yai_ ,” Rosa sighs. “Be patient, _cariño_ ,” She humorously rolls her eyes while shaking her head. Her relaxed demeanor somehow softens the remark, along with those loose strands from her puffy, tied up hair, stringing together the typical look of a spent mother. Maybe Keith just has an immediate bias toward the women in this family, maybe it’s from seeing his own mom’s devotion to merely keeping him _alive_ , but Rosa is the image of someone who deserves the world and nothing less. What is it like to not have to be a paladin and obtain the same kind of power? Undoubtedly, she would know.

Maricela’s head lolls over to look in the other direction where her family members are huddled nearby. Her tiny, _tiny_ fingers flex while her arm stretches out before curling back in as if to grab something out of mid air. She breathes out heavily, turns back to Keith, and pats the fist so lightly against his chest it only feels like a puff of wind. And in one last movement, she leans further into his hold until her half mast lids shut completely and she’s rendered still with a quiet sigh.

Keith is going to turn to mush by the end of this. That was just as adorable as all those nights of having little Kosmo curled into his side, until he’d get woken up at some ungodly hour by the wolf relentlessly licking his face. Welp, at least that won’t be happening with Maricela, but he sends out a silent blessing to Lisa and Luis for the inevitable crying fits that will surely be less tolerable than what Kosmo had to offer.

“Maricela _loves_ Keith,” Sylvio says through squished lips. His cheeks are comically puffed out from propping both up in each hand while he watches in a daze.

“Mhm,” Lisa says with a friendly chuckle. “She’s saying _te quiero_ to Keith, huh?” She lifts her gaze back to where Keith sits with his head curiously tilted, then adds as an afterthought: “That means _‘I love you’_.”

“Oh,” Keith hums easily. That’s sweet, but hasn’t he heard that phrase—

  
  


_“That honestly makes me feel better, Keith._ Te quiero _.”_ _Lance kisses his hand._

  
  


—before. He’s definitely heard that phrase before, only hours ago, in fact. And by the looks of it, Lance knows damn well too because he shrinks back on shifty feet and kisses his teeth, suddenly engrossed in literally _everything else_ while Keith tries to comprehend this new piece of information. Lance rocks back on his heels and peers over at the nurses, giving them a short nod and tense smile before turning back in.

Their eyes meet, and what Keith wants to say to his blushing friend is _“You’re such a motherfucker”_ , but what comes out is:

“Your turn?”

Lance perks up and stands at attention now, his eyes alight with renewed excitement that overthrows the brief embarrassment Lisa had unknowingly caught in him. His movements are still a bit stiff when he comes back over to the chair, but only Keith can notice because Keith would know _why_.

But that’s a family thing, right? You say I love you and express your gratitude for whatever favor comes your way. Plus, Lance didn’t sport his boisterous, loverboy persona at Waffle House, whether for his own sake or to spare poor Dominic, he’s unsure, but nonetheless the _“razzle-dazzle”_ wasn’t there to have a good flirt, especially with Keith of all people. So why is he worrying about it when he clearly shouldn’t be? Why is it such a big deal for Lance to say _“I love you”_ in another language, probably to just get it over with and spare the initial embarrassment? Though clearly, it didn’t quite work out now that they’re here with that piece laying out in the open.

Keith gave him a pep talk, Lance skimmed through the gratitude, and that’s just that.

But damn will Keith’s stupid peanut brain be riding this merry-go-round of _he said it he said it he said it_ until the fuse burns out and all there’s left to do is send Pidge some out of context message like _“I’d like a one way ticket to anywhere but here”_ and she’ll still pick up the idea and reply with _“lmao you’re totally gone dude”_.

“Yes, now hand over my child,” Lance says with grabby hands. Again, it’s not like Keith can just toss her over.

“Here, why don’t I take her” —Luis leans over and Keith helps him scoop up Maricela with ease— “and you swap places with Keith.”

His body’s reaction to the lack of contact with Maricela is instantaneous. The color of his skin slips back to its usual shade as easily as dip dying an easter egg, except if there was an “undo” bowl that reverted the pigment back to its default pasty color. (Sad, he should get some sunlight more often). His gums do their weird little _roll_ as his set of Galra teeth slide into their more human state, and yeah, the sight must be strange, but _feeling_ it makes his stomach squirm on a whole other level of discomfort since he’s still getting used to this part, believe it or not.

Sylvio scoots over from his place on the bed before Keith sits down at his side. His tongue roves over those certain areas one last time before catching the little boy’s stare. Sylvio’s hand touches his own set of teeth absentmindedly, and it looks like he’s got a couple empty spaces along the bottom from his baby teeth finally loosening up and taking their leave.

“Back to normal,” Keith says and displays his less intimidating smile.

Sylvio lifts his fingertip from his small canine to point at Keith curiously. “They’re still pointy, though.”

“They’ve always been like that.” He’s heard that a lot, and surprisingly enough, his father can be to blame for that trait. When he was younger, his dad’s friends and coworkers would call the man _Count Dracula_ , and then six year-old Keith was _little dracula_. The nickname would always have him giggling with a small hand cupped over his mouth to shield the sight, until Tony, his dad’s best friend, would catch him in a tickle attack and render his smile wide and exposed.

Sometimes if he looks in the mirror after putting off his routine shave for a couple days, the peek of his pointed canines and the mask of a five o’clock shadow is just enough to spark that familiar image of his father. It was initially picked up by his mom, who had one day caressed his cheek and rubbed her thumb along the stubble at his chin, saying _“You look like Jihoon”_ to him instead of the _“You need to shave”_ Keith was expecting.

“Oh,” Sylvios says and his hand lands back onto his crossed legs.

Lance is sitting in the recliner now, properly holding Maricela with care unlike his lack of regards for formalities before. Good to know Maricela isn’t being held like an apple or a box of pizza, thanks to Rosa’s repeated guidance.

“The two babies of the family,” Rachel says sweetly, just as Marco similarly mentioned when they first arrived. “Didn’t Lance vomit on Luis when he was first being held?”

“You can shut up now,” Lance grumbles with his eyes still downcast to his baby niece. Luis laughs though for whatever reason, Keith can’t tell because the memory seems pretty unpleasant for him to even think about. Then again, he gets a little squeamish every time Hunk makes a comment about his own sloshing stomach when they take flight for an apprehensive mission.

Keith watches as Lance adjusts his grip to lift up one hand and bring it to Maricela’s small hand. He carefully unhinges her balled up fist and slips his index finger in between to fit there snugly, and her set of knuckles blooms white for a moment as she subconsciously clutches tighter before finally relaxing.

The passive look on Lance’s face melts as easily as butter once it shifts to spellbound, like that tiny hand is capable of ensnaring the entirety of Lance’s attention from a single connection. But Keith gets it, really, it only took that brief glimpse at Maricela’s large eyes to be thrown into a trance of half confusion and half endearment.

“I wanna hold her forever,” Lance murmurs. Even though it’s likely meant to be some sort of announcement, he delivers the comment like something that’s only meant to be kept between him and the girl.

Veronica snorts. “Right, and end up like Luis did?”

“Don’t care.” He slouches back and carries the baby with him, curling his knees up to huddle them close together before placing a gentle kiss on Maricela’s soft head.

There’s something about how immediately accepting and adoring Lance is to his new family member that sparks Keith’s interest. Logically, Maricela is just a baby, has had no prior experiences with Lance up until this moment, and there’s simply no history behind their relationship apart from routine updates on Lisa’s pregnancy before. But Lance holds her like he’s known her his whole life, like she’s even his own (which is just a whole other concept to think about), with no prior hesitancy in expressing his welcome.

Keith wonders what it would be like if Lance had this same approach to everyone. What would it be like if they started on the right foot instead of totally off balance? What would it be like if Lance had been just a bit more friendly and less _I-wanna-fistfight-every-time-you-talk_ to Keith? If he didn’t replace Keith’s shampoo with temporary hair dye as absurdly often as he used to? Just what if?

Lance glances up and catches Keith’s stare. He smirks and lifts his index finger, waggling it with Maricela’s hand still latched. “Say hi, cutie-pie,” Lance sing-songs and his smirk turns to a cheesy smile when Maricela looks over in Keith’s direction while her mouth wobbles with empty intent. It’s cute, really. They’re both _“cutie-pies”_ if Keith is being honest, even though that term kind of makes him want to vomit. (Just like Lance had on Luis, apparently).

Keith still can’t help his grin, and he thinks that even if he and Lance _did_ have a stable start, maybe it wouldn’t turn out quite as good as this reality.

  
  


3:46 PM: _@reallancemcclain_ ’s _IG post_ • New addition to the McClain family!

_1/2•Keith holding Maricela_

_2/2•Lance holding Maricela_

3,406,769 likes

_@kick4ever_

_i can’t tell which one he’s talking about_

6,043 likes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, bet y’all didn’t expect THAT
> 
> “Llegó el novio” is basically “the boyfriend arrived”  
> mijo/mis hijos = my son/my sons (or children)
> 
> Fair warning I do not speak Spanish so any fluent or native speakers _please_ feel free to correct any errors or awkwardness as I’m trying to do this some justice lol. I know how cringey the bi/multilingual stuff can be in some fics...
> 
> Leave a comment/drop a kudos! I love feedback <3

**Author's Note:**

> exclusive fics on [my instagram](https://instagram.com/arcadevia?igshid=1bqu2rmbht9gq)


End file.
